Model and reality TV personality Janice Dickinson has been subpoenaed to testify at the upcoming retrial of Bill Cosby as one of as many as five “prior bad acts” witnesses, according to a source close to the case.
Dickinson said in a November 2014 interview that Cosby sexually assaulted her in 1982 after the two had dinner in Lake Tahoe. She alleged that he gave her a pill and a glass of red wine shortly before she passed out.
Cosby attorney Martin Singer at the time called the accusation “a fabricated lie.” Dickinson, with attorney Lisa Bloom, sued Cosby for defamation in May 2015, saying Singer’s comments hurt her professionally and personally.
Dickinson told CNN in July 2015 that she still was angry and confused and had nightmares about the incident.
“I keep reliving the same sick feeling in my soul and my body. The memories are still there, and every time I think about it and I hear new information, it still takes me back to that actual night like it happened yesterday,” she said.
“It sickens me, but I have to be strong, for our daughters, our sisters, our mothers, our aunts, our cousins. I have to be strong for women,” she added. “I have to do this. It’s the right thing to do.”
Retrial due to start next week
Cosby, 80, faces a retrial — set to open next week in Pennsylvania state court — on three charges of aggravated indecent assault for allegedly drugging and assaulting Andrea Constand in 2004 at his home outside Philadelphia. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges. His first trial ended last June with a hung jury.
Though the charges deal solely with Constand’s allegations, Montgomery County Judge Steven T. O’Neill ruled that prosecutors can seek testimony from as many as five women who have alleged Cosby drugged and assaulted them.
Prosecutors plan to use those “prior bad acts” witnesses to show that Cosby’s actions related to Constand were part of a pattern and were not a one-time mistake.
Dickinson told CNN in 2015 that she did not consent to having sex with Cosby. “How could I? I was drugged,” she said.
She said she wouldn’t feel validated until Cosby apologized to his victims, adding, “This mass serial rapist be put in jail for his crimes against humanity.”
