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By Tom Winter and Rich Schapiro
Comedian turned doomed, Bill Cosby settled a federal complaint with seven women who accused him of defamation after making public allegations of sexual assault, according to court documents filed Friday.
The women sued Cosby in 2014, claiming he had mistakenly called them liars after accusing him of sexual abuse. The following year, the former sitcom actor, dubbed "the father of America", filed a lawsuit, alleging that they had defamed his character and had intentionally done so. derail a televised opportunity ahead.
The women's lawyer, Joseph Cammarata, said that "every complainant is satisfied with the settlement," according to court papers filed in the US District Court of Massachusetts.
But a statement posted on Cosby's Twitter and Instagram pages denied having settled "all cases" and indicated that the insurance company AIG had acted in this way without "having knowledge, authorization or consent of Mr. Cosby".
"He pays nothing to anyone and continues to pursue his counterclaims," the statement said.
"Cosby vehemently denies the charges against him in these libel suits and maintains his innocence," the text adds.
The terms of the regulation have not been disclosed.
In a separate petition, Cammarata said he planned to file court documents asking a judge to dismiss Cosby's lawsuit.
Cosby's lawyers did not immediately return a request for comment. An AIG representative did not immediately return a request for comment.
Cosby, 81, was sentenced to three to ten years in prison last September after being convicted of drugs and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand.
Constand testified that Cosby had raped her at home in Pennsylvania in 2004 after she asked her for career advice. At the time, Constand was the director of operations of the women's basketball team at Temple University.
About 60 women have accused Cosby of assaulting them, but Constand is the only one whose allegations have resulted in criminal charges. The other charges were too old to prosecute.
Cosby, who played Cliff Huxtable, an adorable father, in the NBC's "The Cosby Show" from 1984 to 1992, denied the charges.
In a statement released last February, Cosby asserted that he was a "political prisoner" and compared to Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi.
"My political convictions, my actions of humanization of all the races, all the sexes and all the religions, took me in this place surrounded by barbed wire, a piece out of steel and iron", has said Cosby in his first statement since his imprisonment four months earlier. "So, I now have a temporary residence that resembles the quarters of some of the greatest political prisoners – Martin Luther King, Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Randal Robinson, and Dr. Benjamin Chavis."
Before the defamation case was settled, Camille, Cosby's wife, answered questions under oath in a statement that lasted nearly six hours.
According to a transcript published in May 2016, Cosby's long-time partner provided few answers to sometimes controversial questions.
Asked about honesty and what it means, Camille Cosby replied, "I will not explain that". When told that she should do it, she replied, "I do not have to do it, I'm done."
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