Entertainment

2 More Women Join Defamation Lawsuit Against Bill Cosby

Published

11 years ago

January 6, 2015

This Nov. 11, 2014, file photo shows entertainer and Navy veteran Bill Cosby speaking during a Veterans Day ceremony, at the The All Wars Memorial to Colored Soldiers and Sailors in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)

SYLVIA LEE WINGFIELD, Associated Press

BOSTON (AP) — Two women accusing Bill Cosby of sexual offenses decades ago have joined a defamation lawsuit, contending he publicly branded them as liars through statements by his representatives.

The amended complaint was filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Springfield, in western Massachusetts, where Cosby has a home in Shelburne Falls.

Cosby is the only defendant in the lawsuit, originally filed last month by Tamara Green, who said he drugged and assaulted her in the 1970s. The two new plaintiffs are Therese Serignese, who said he drugged and raped her in 1976, and Linda Traitz, who alleges he tried to drug her and then sexually groped her in 1970.

Attorney Joseph Cammarata, who represents the three women, said the civil action allows them to have their allegations heard since criminal statutes of limitation have expired.

“The lawsuit provides an opportunity for women who claim to have been harmed to have their day in court in a forum where the truth can be tried,” he said.

Cosby’s publicist David Brokaw and lawyer Martin Singer did not immediately respond to requests for comment Monday. Singer has said he expected to prevail in the original lawsuit.

Green first spoke publicly about her allegations in 2005. She said in the lawsuit that after she did media interviews Brokaw and Cosby’s lawyer Walter M. Phillips Jr. made statements intended to expose her to public contempt and ridicule. Phillips said last month he represented Cosby in 2005 but no longer does, and he declined to comment further. Brokaw did not return messages then seeking comment on Green’s allegations.

Serignese and Traitz, who are from Florida, allege in the amended complaint that when they came forward separately last November, Singer issued responses for Cosby that said they and other accusers were lying.

Since November, at least 15 women have come forward with claims Cosby sexually assaulted them decades ago. Most of the women say he drugged them before he assaulted them.

Cosby, who starred as Dr. Cliff Huxtable on “The Cosby Show” from 1984 to 1992, has never been charged in connection with any of the allegations, and through his representatives he has denied them. A 2005 lawsuit by a Pennsylvania woman was settled before it went to trial.

Cosby’s career unraveled after his accusers came forward, with a TV project halted and nearly a dozen standup comedy tour performances canceled or indefinitely postponed. He’s scheduled to appear Wednesday in Canada, at a Kitchener, Ontario, theater, his first concert since a Nov. 21 show in Melbourne, Florida.

___

AP Television Writer Lynn Elber contributed from Los Angeles.

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Arts and Culture

COMMENTARY: Black Music is the Sound of Black Freedom: Let Us Reclaim Both This Juneteenth

Black Music Month started when Black Music Association members Ed Wright, Kenny Gamble and his wife, journalist and radio host Dyanna Williams were able to persuade President Jimmy Carter to establish the observation on June 7, 1979.

Published

15 hours ago

June 9, 2026

Oakland Post

Robert Johnson (1911-1938) is thought of as the godfather of blues music, especially Delta blues. The 29 songs recorded by him during his short life have been of massive inspiration to guitarists and musicians over the last 80 years. Public domain photo.

By Wanda Ravernell

Black Music Month and Juneteenth are inextricably linked – Black music is the sound of our freedom.

From the plaintive moans of the enslaved Africans’ ‘sorrow songs,’ to the fields of Civil War battle where Black soldiers picked up abandoned bugles, to the upright piano played in juke joints on Saturday night and churches come Sunday morning, our ancestors’ innovation in the face of want, fear, degradation, and hopelessness has yielded genres of music imitated ’round the world.

In 2000, Congress made it official. In 2009, Pres. Barack Obama changed the name to African American Music Heritage Month and in 2023, Pres. Joe Biden changed it back to Black Music Month, two years after he declared Juneteenth a national holiday, the result of a movement led by Opal Lee.

Our ancestors battle for freedom over these last 400 years and the music that allowed them expression of their humanity deserved to be honored.

But we may be losing sight of the value of their sacrifices.

‘Sing a Song Full of the Faith That the Dark past Has Taught Us…’

Along with the long-known exploitation of Black musicians whose recordings were stolen by record companies, the commercialization of Juneteenth feels like another kind of theft.

I had never heard of Juneteenth until I moved to the Bay Area from my hometown of Philadelphia. I didn’t know it was one of many freedom festivals celebrated by descendants of enslaved people in the United States.

Emancipation Day was Jan. 1 in Pennsylvania, April 16 in Wash., D.C., May 20 in Florida, and Aug. 8 in Kentucky. But Juneteenth, June 19, has the most renown, known in Texas as the ‘colored peoples’ Fourth of July.’

It was marked by parades, beauty pageants, rodeos, backyard barbecues and church picnics.

Yes, church.

The formerly enslaved began the day praying in thanks for their freedom just as they had prayed for Jubilee – the day of freedom – when they had chains on their feet and hands. They ‘testified’ about their past suffering and how they had managed to overcome.

And they sang.

Although, we will not hold it this year, Omnira Institute’s Juneteenth Ritual of Remembrance recalled this part of Juneteenth with prayers in the languages of the African captives. In the middle of the ceremony, a soloist would lead us in singing “Many Thousand Gone” while we took turns reciting portions of the Emancipation Proclamation, the news of freedom that took more than two years to reach Texas – two months after the Civil War ended.

“Many Thousand Gone” was famously recorded by Black luminary Paul Robeson in 1947:

“No more auction block for me,

No more, no more

No more auction black for me

Many thousand gone.”

Other verses refer to the ‘pint of salt’ and the ‘driver’s lash,’ the realities of enslavement that they had survived.

‘Sing a Song Full of the Hope That the Present has Brought Us’

All of the genres of African American music have at their root songs like that, the essence being, as Stevie Wonder, wrote, “the joy inside our pain.” So Black music is not just music. It is our story, our history, our very strength.

During the Civil Rights Movement, which peaked 100 years after slavery ended, the people testified that it was the freedom songs – based on spirituals – that gave them the heart to march, face attack dogs, fire hoses, beatings, and shootouts with vigilantes.

The music reminded them that power was in the people. That music, our music, can do so again. We don’t have to accept the commodification of the products of our culture.

The power of those songs is showing a resurgence across the South as we battle again for the right to self-determination through the ballot box.

Those songs are the voices of our ancestors, voices forged in their blood, their sweat, their tears, joy and, above all, faith. Those songs, those prayers live in our blood and our very breath.

This Juneteenth, let us reclaim those holy voices expressed in Black music for ourselves. It is our birthright. It can neither be bought nor sold. No more. Never again.

Wanda Ravernell is the executive director of Omnira Institute, sponsor for 18 years of the Juneteenth Ritual of Remembrance and Oakland’s 11^th Annual Black-Eyed Pea Festival, which will take place on Sept. 12.