Bill Cosby is headed to court.
No, the disgraced comic isn’t facing criminal sexual assault charges (yet), but he’ll reportedly be forced to testify in a civil suit filed by supermodel and reality TV personality Janice Dickinson.
Dickinson accused Cosby of rape in November of last year.
She offered shocking details of the alleged assault in a series of interviews, leading Cosby’s former attorney Martin Singer to go on the offensive and publicly condemn Dickinson as a liar.
Now, Dickinson’s lawyers are fighting back, claiming that Singer (and by extension Cosby) defamed Dickinson with damaging public statements.
In a hearing held this morning, Debre K. Weintraub decreed that both Cosby and Singer can be deposed and questioned as to whether they knew Dickinson’s statements were untrue before Singer made his remarks.
In other words, Cosby will be asked under oath if he’s guilty of sexual assault.
“A reasonable fact finder could conclude the press statements declare provable false assertions of fact, a factual assertion that Ms. Dickinson is lying,” Weintraub stated today.
“In other words, either the rape did occur or it did not occur, and in this regard Ms. Dickinson is either telling the truth or not telling the truth.”
It’s bad news for Cosby, but the TV legend may be facing much bigger problems. Police in both Philadelphia and Los Angeles are currently conducting investigations into Cosby’s actions to determine if he can be tried in criminal court.