Bill Cosby’s daughter Evin says her father ‘loves and respects women’
Bill Cosby’s youngest child, Evin Cosby, has spoken out in support of her father, saying he has been unfairly judged by those who believe he’s guilty of sexual misconduct.
Cosby has been charged with three counts of felony aggravated indecent assault stemming from an alleged encounter with accuser Andrea Constand in 2004. He has pleaded not guilty.
In a statement obtained by ABC News and printed in full below, Evin Cosby defended her father as a barrier-breaking comedian who worked hard to provide for his family.
“I am his fourth daughter. He raised me to go to college, start my own business, and be my own woman. He is helping me raise my children and teach them family values. I know that my father loves me, loves my sisters and my mother,” she said. “He loves and respects women. He is not abusive, violent or a rapist.”
Constand, who has accused Cosby of drugging and sexually assaulting her, first went to the police with her claims in 2005, but Bruce Castor, then the district attorney in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, declined to bring charges against Cosby. Constand then filed a civil lawsuit, in which she accused the TV star of battery, sexual assault and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Thirteen other women, including Beth Ferrier and Barbara Bowman, approached Constand’s attorneys and offered to testify on her behalf, but the case never went to court. Instead, it was settled confidentially and sealed in 2006, but not before Cosby was deposed over the course of four days in the months prior. A portion of those testimonies was unsealed in 2015, and it was revealed that Cosby admitted to giving Quaaludes to a woman with whom he wanted to have sex. He also defended himself against Constand’s claims, but acknowledged that they had a sexual encounter.
“I don’t hear her say anything. And I don’t feel her say anything,” he said. “And so I continue and I go into the area that is somewhere between permission and rejection. I am not stopped.”
In December 2015, shortly before the statute of limitations on Constand’s claims expired, a new district attorney brought the criminal charge against Cosby, which Cosby unsuccessfully petitioned to have dismissed. In the months since, Cosby and his lawyers have returned to court on multiple occasions to determine the particulars of the trial, which is slated to begin in June. In February, a judge agreed to the defense’s request to bring in a jury from outside Montgomery County, but declined to change the venue of the trial, which will be held in the area. Though prosecutors wanted to put 13 women on the stand to illustrate what they perceive to be a pattern, a judge ruled that the jury will hear from just one.
That person, identified as Victim No. 6, claimed in court documents that she first met Cosby in 1990 when she was an assistant to his personal appearance agent. She alleged that six years later, when she was 29 and he was 58, he invited her to lunch at a hotel in Los Angeles, suggested she take a pill with wine to relax, and then, after she was rendered unconscious, she awoke to him sexually assaulting her in a bed. Cosby, who has been accused by dozens of women of sexual misconduct and/or drugging, has denied all allegations of wrongdoing.
Evin Cosby, 40, acknowledged that her father may not be a perfect person and noted that although he had extramarital affairs, “that was between him and my mother.” Like every American, she noted, he deserves to be assumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
“The public persecution of my dad, my kids’ grandfather, and the cruelty of the media and those who speak out branding my father a ‘rapist’ without ever knowing the truth and who shame our family and our friends for defending my dad, makes all of this so much worse for my family and my children,” she said. “When people are so quick to cast hate and make accusations of horrific violence against my dad, they are callous in their carelessness about the harm they are causing to others.”
