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Former supermodel and TV personality Janice Dickinson will be a prosecution witness against comedian Bill Cosby in his upcoming sexual assault retrial.
Dickinson, 63, has been subpoenaed for the retrial in suburban Philadelphia, prosecutors told Montgomery County Judge Steven O’Neill on Wednesday. She is among five so-called prior bad-acts witnesses the judge ruled earlier this month would be allowed to take the stand.
Cosby, 80, is charged with three counts of aggravated indecent assault for allegedly drugging and sexually assaulting former Temple University women’s basketball coach Andrea Constand in 2004. A jury deadlocked on the charges in June 2016 and a mistrial was declared. Cosby has pleaded not guilty.
The judge ruled the five women could testify because their stories closely resemble the claims made by Constand. The ruling was seen as a big victory for prosecutors.
“If the prosecution chooses to call Janice Dickinson as one of the five ‘prior bad acts’ witnesses, she is ready, willing and able to testify truthfully about her experience,” Dickinson’s attorney Lisa Bloom said Wednesday, according to the New York Daily News.
In a 2014 interview with ET Online, Dickinson said Cosby drugged and raped her in 1982 after dinner in Lake Tahoe.
“The next morning I woke up, and I wasn’t wearing my pajamas,” she told ET. “Before I woke up in the morning, the last thing I remember was Bill Cosby in a patchwork robe, dropping his robe and getting on top of me. And I remember a lot of pain.”
Dickinson also has filed a civil lawsuit against Cosby, saying he defamed her with a statement calling her a liar.
More than 50 women have accused the entertainer of sexual assault, with many saying he drugged and raped them.
Jury selection for the retrial starts Monday and testimony is set to begin April 9.
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