Bill Cosby Accuser Files New Lawsuit under Expiring New York Survivors Law

Bill Cosby reacts outside his home in Elkins Park, Pa., Wednesday, June 30, 2021, after being released from prison. (AP)
Bill Cosby reacts outside his home in Elkins Park, Pa., Wednesday, June 30, 2021, after being released from prison. (AP)
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Bill Cosby Accuser Files New Lawsuit under Expiring New York Survivors Law

Bill Cosby reacts outside his home in Elkins Park, Pa., Wednesday, June 30, 2021, after being released from prison. (AP)
Bill Cosby reacts outside his home in Elkins Park, Pa., Wednesday, June 30, 2021, after being released from prison. (AP)

A woman who said Bill Cosby sexually assaulted her when she was a young comedy writer more than 50 years ago filed a lawsuit against the actor Thursday under a soon-to-expire New York law that gave victims of sexual abuse a one-year window for claims that would otherwise be barred by time limits.

Joan Tarshis initially came forward with allegations against Cosby in 2014 that are repeated in the new lawsuit. Tarshis said Cosby drugged her and forced her to perform oral sex on him in 1969 or 1970, and then drugged and raped her during another encounter a year or two later.

The New York resident was living in California at the time of the first assault and had met Cosby through a mutual friend while he was starring in "The Bill Cosby Show," according to the lawsuit, filed in state Supreme Court in New York City.

A spokesperson for Cosby did not address the specifics of Tarshis's claims.

"Diddy, LA Reid, Steven Tyler, and now they circle back to this," spokesperson Andrew Wyatt said, referring to others recently sued under New York's Adult Survivors Act. "When is it going to stop?"

Cosby, 86, has been accused of rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment by more than 60 women. He has denied all allegations involving sex crimes. He was the first celebrity tried and convicted in the #MeToo era and spent nearly three years at a state prison near Philadelphia before a higher court overturned the conviction and released him in 2021.

Tarshis was among the first accusers to speak publicly about Cosby, whom she met when she was 19 and just breaking into comedy writing. An interview she did with CNN newsman Don Lemon soon after she came forward drew a flurry of attention on social media, and an apology from Lemon.

Tarshis previously sued Cosby in Massachusetts, where Cosby had a home. She was among seven women who filed defamation claims after Cosby branded them liars. The cases were settled in 2019.

The new lawsuit alleges assault, battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress and false imprisonment. It seeks unspecified damages.

In it, Tarshis said Cosby invited her to meet with him at the studio lot where he was filming his show, under the pretense of working on a skit she was writing. Once in his bungalow, Tarshis said she fell unconscious after accepting a drink from Cosby and awoke to find him undressing her before forcing her to perform oral sex.

"Ms. Tarshis was mortified and feared for her life," and returned to New York without telling anyone what happened, according to the lawsuit.

She next heard from Cosby in 1971, when he called her home, spoke with her mother, and invited her to his show at Westbury Music Fair, the lawsuit said.

"Though Ms. Tarshis was fearful at the prospect of seeing Cosby again, she had not yet told anyone, including her mother, of the prior sexual assault and she reluctantly agreed to meet with Cosby at the insistence of her mother," according to the lawsuit.

She said she lost consciousness in a limousine Cosby had arranged for them and awoke the next morning in a bed next to Cosby, who she said had undressed and raped her.

The Adult Survivors Act is set to expire next week.

Antonio "L.A." Reid, a music executive, was sued last week by an executive who alleges that Reid sexually assaulted her twice in 2001. Email and telephone messages left for Joel Katz, an attorney who represented Reid when the allegations surfaced in 2017, weren’t immediately returned Friday night.

Sean "Diddy" Combs has denied allegations of rape and abuse brought by a former girlfriend earlier this week.

Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler has not publicly responded to a lawsuit filed earlier this month.



Video Game Performers Will Go on Strike Over Artificial Intelligence Concerns 

SAG-AFTRA signage is seen on the side of the headquarters in Los Angeles on Friday, Nov. 10, 2023. (AP)
SAG-AFTRA signage is seen on the side of the headquarters in Los Angeles on Friday, Nov. 10, 2023. (AP)
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Video Game Performers Will Go on Strike Over Artificial Intelligence Concerns 

SAG-AFTRA signage is seen on the side of the headquarters in Los Angeles on Friday, Nov. 10, 2023. (AP)
SAG-AFTRA signage is seen on the side of the headquarters in Los Angeles on Friday, Nov. 10, 2023. (AP)

Hollywood's video game performers announced they would go on strike Thursday, throwing part of the entertainment industry into another work stoppage after talks for a new contract with major game studios broke down over artificial intelligence protections.

The strike — the second for video game voice actors and motion capture performers under the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists — will begin at 12:01 a.m. Friday. The move comes after nearly two years of negotiations with gaming giants, including divisions of Activision, Warner Bros. and Walt Disney Co., over a new interactive media agreement.

SAG-AFTRA negotiators say gains have been made over wages and job safety in the video game contract, but that the two sides remained split over the regulation of generative AI. A spokesperson for the video game producers, Audrey Cooling, said the studios offered AI protections, but SAG-AFTRA’s negotiating committee said that the studios’ definition of who constitutes a "performer" is key to understanding the issue of who would be protected.

"The industry has told us point blank that they do not necessarily consider everyone who is rendering movement performance to be a performer that is covered by the collective bargaining agreement," SAG-AFTRA Chief Contracts Officer Ray Rodriguez said at a news conference Thursday afternoon. He said some physical performances are being treated as "data."

Without guardrails, game companies could train AI to replicate an actor’s voice, or create a digital replica of their likeness without consent or fair compensation, the union said.

"We strike as a matter of last resort. We have given this process absolutely as much time as we responsibly can," Rodriguez told reporters. "We have exhausted the other possibilities, and that is why we’re doing it now."

Cooling said the companies' offer "extends meaningful AI protections."

"We are disappointed the union has chosen to walk away when we are so close to a deal, and we remain prepared to resume negotiations," she said.

Andi Norris, an actor and member of the union's negotiating committee, said that those who do stunt work or creature performances would still be at risk under the game companies' offer.

"The performers who bring their body of work to these games create a whole variety of characters, and all of that work must be covered. Their proposal would carve out anything that doesn’t look and sound identical to me as I sit here, when, in truth, on any given week I am a zombie, I am a soldier, I am a zombie soldier," Norris said. "We cannot and will not accept that a stunt or movement performer giving a full performance on stage next to a voice actor isn’t a performer."

The global video game industry generates well over $100 billion dollars in profit annually, according to game market forecaster Newzoo. The people who design and bring those games to life are the driving force behind that success, SAG-AFTRA said.

Members voted overwhelmingly last year to give leadership the authority to strike. Concerns about how movie studios will use AI helped fuel last year’s film and television strikes by the union, which lasted four months.

The last interactive contract, which expired in November 2022, did not provide protections around AI but secured a bonus compensation structure for voice actors and performance capture artists after an 11-month strike that began in October 2016. That work stoppage marked the first major labor action from SAG-AFTRA following the merger of Hollywood’s two largest actors unions in 2012.

The video game agreement covers more than 2,500 "off-camera (voiceover) performers, on-camera (motion capture, stunt) performers, stunt coordinators, singers, dancers, puppeteers, and background performers," according to the union.

Amid the tense interactive negotiations, SAG-AFTRA created a separate contract in February that covered independent and lower-budget video game projects. The tiered-budget independent interactive media agreement contains some of the protections on AI that video game industry titans have rejected. Games signed to an interim interactive media agreement, tiered-budget independent interactive agreement or interim interactive localization agreement are not part of the strike, the union said.