Less than a week after taking a big legal loss in his criminal sexual assault case in Pennsylvania, Bill Cosby was handed a win by the California courts today. An L.A. Superior Court judge Tuesday agreed with the actor-comedian’s lawyers to toss an amended complaint by Janice Dickinson in her defamation suit against Cosby and his former attorney Marty Singer. In a tentative ruling read from the bench, Judge Debra Weintraub also allowed Singer to be dismissed from the case.
“The court finds that the first amended complaint is properly striken,” she said, noting the long ongoing anti-SLAPP motion, “defendant Cosby’s motion to strike is granted.” Having said that, Weintraub noted to Dickinson’s attorney Lisa Bloom and the assembled lawyers for all sides that the original complaint remains in play and “we are moving this case along …we will see everyone here on February 29 at 8:30.” Cosby, Singer and Dickinson were not in the courtroom today.
The former America’s Next Top Model judge claims Cosby raped her in 1982 and that his then-lawyer Singer branded her a “liar” in late 2014 when she brought the incident up. Dickinson took the matter to court in May, and last fall she filed an amended complaint formally naming Singer a defendant.
Source: Deadline
