Image: Actor and comedian Bill Cosby arrives for the second day of hearings at the Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown, Pennsylvania February 3, 2016. REUTERS/Ed Hille/Pool
(Reuters) – Bill Cosby has sued a woman whose allegations that he drugged and sexually assaulted her sparked the only criminal charges against the disgraced comedian over his running sexual assault scandal, The New York Times reported on Wednesday.
The lawsuit, which was filed under seal in a federal court in Pennsylvania, named Andrea Constand and her attorneys, Dolores Troiani and Bebe Kivitz, the Times reported.
The Times said U.S. District Judge Eduardo Robreno lifted the seal on only parts of the civil action, so the full extent was not immediately known.
The New York Times said that Cosby’s attorneys have repeatedly accused the defendants of breaching an agreement in a previous civil suit brought by Constand that was resolved out of court with a confidential settlement.
Reuters could not independently verify the report.
A Pennsylvania judge two weeks ago rejected Cosby’s attempts to have the criminal trial dismissed. Cosby’s attorneys failed to convince the judge that their client could not be prosecuted due to an agreement reached with a former Montgomery Country district attorney more than a decade ago.
An entertainer who built a career on family-friendly comedy, Cosby now faces accusations from more than 50 women that he sexually assaulted them, often after plying them with drugs and alcohol, in a series of attacks dating to the 1960s.
(Reporting by Curtis Skinner in San Francisco; Editing by Sandra Maler and Leslie Adler)
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