More Cosby shows canceled as women allege assault

By Frazier Moore

Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — Performances by Bill Cosby in Las Vegas, Illinois, Arizona, South Carolina and Washington state have been canceled as more women come forward accusing the entertainer of sexually assaulting them many years ago.

Officials at the Treasure Island hotel and casino on the Las Vegas strip said Friday they mutually agreed with the comedian to cancel his Nov. 28 performance. No reason was given by the Diamond Desert casino in Tucson, Arizona, for canceling his Feb. 15 show.

Two other appearances, scheduled for April in Champaign, Illinois, also were called off Friday, as was a February show in Florence, South Carolina.

The director of The Broadway Center in Tacoma, Washington said Friday that it has canceled Cosby’s April 18 appearance because it conflicts with the nonprofit organization’s mission “to strengthen our community’s social fabric by building empathy, furthering education and sharing joy.”

“We were not confident in our ability to meet those objectives by proceeding with Mr. Cosby’s performance,” David Fischer said.

Producers said Cosby, 77, still planned to bring his comedy routine to a sold-out theater in Melbourne, Florida, Friday night, and at least 31 other shows remain on his schedule through May 2015.

The allegations by at least six women that Cosby sexually assaulted them after giving them pills many years ago also prompted the cancellation of TV interviews and much-anticipated projects on NBC and Netflix. Reruns of “The Cosby Show” have been pulled off the air.

Some of the women are going public again after initially coming forward around 2005, when Andrea Constand filed a civil suit alleging that she was sexually assaulted by Cosby. The Pennsylvania woman’s lawyer said other women were prepared to make similar claims, but the case was settled before trial.

Tamara Green, a California attorney, was among those who had agreed to testify. She later said Cosby tried to sexually assault her in her Los Angeles apartment around 1970, when she was a model and an aspiring actress.

She said Cosby asked her to help him raise money to open a private dance club. When she got sick shortly after starting the project, she said Cosby gave her two pills that made her almost lose consciousness, took her to her apartment, undressed her and then took his clothes off.

“I got really angry,” she told The Associated Press in an interview on Friday. She recalled screaming and trying to break a window with a lamp as she fought off Cosby’s advances. He eventually left, leaving two $100 bills on her nightstand, she recalled.

“I think that my blood pressure and my fury was keeping me from losing consciousness,” she said.

Another woman, Joan Tarshis, decided to tell her story publicly for the first time on Monday.

Now 66, Tarshis said Cosby gave her drug-laced drinks twice in 1969, forcing her to perform a sex act the first time and raping her the second time. She said she told no one about this for decades, and only decided to go public when she read a Nov. 13 column in The Washington Post by Barbara Bowman, who alleges she was drugged and raped by Cosby when she was 17.

“I actually spoke with Barbara Bowman yesterday,” Tarshis told the AP on Friday. “It was great. Because she’s a person who understands what I’ve been through … I said, ‘I’m giving you a hug all the way to Arizona.’”

Cosby’s representatives have broadly dismissed the accusations. He has never been charged with any such crime, and his lawyer has specifically denied some of the allegations. Cosby himself has consistently refused to comment on it.

“We don’t answer that,” Cosby told the AP this month.

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Contributors include Michael Virtanen in Albany, New York, Mark Kennedy and Alexandra Otto in New York, Anthony McCartney in Los Angeles and Matt Sedensky in West Palm Beach, Florida.