Bill Cosby’s attorney Monique Pressley appeared on HuffPost Live this week to discuss the sexual assault accusations against her client.
In a heated discussion with host Marc Lamont Hill, Pressley said that women who have been sexually assaulted have a responsibility to immediately come forward if they want justice.
“Report, go to the hospital… do all of the things that rape counseling centers tell women to do immediately,” she said, alluding to the fact that many of Cosby’s accusers did not immediately press charges.
Pressley denied that she was actively blaming the victims. “I’m not speculating, I’m not thinking, I’m not opining, I’m not waxing poetic,” she said, “but what I’m saying is women have responsibility. We have responsibility for our bodies, we have responsibility for our decisions, we have responsibility for the way we conduct ourselves.”
“If a woman is violated by a man and does not report, for whatever reason—and I’m not saying that the reasons are bad or good or indifferent—what I am saying is that in a court of law, the entire situation, will never be brought forward for the purposes of justice.”
She continued:
The only way for a woman to get the justice that she seeks—and that, if her allegation is true, that she deserves—is to come forward [soon after the crime]. And even if the reasons that the women did not do that are legitimate ones, what cannot happen—in my opinion, in the United States—is that 40 years later there is a persecution tantamount to a witch hunt where there was no prosecution timely and there was no civil suit timely. And there’s not any testimony or any accusation from any of these women that Mr. Cosby in any way bound them, gagged them, prevented them from coming forward and saying whatever their truth was at the time. That’s not what happened.
Pressley also spoke on Beverly Johnson’s allegations, saying that the media should look further into her claims because a former manager had come forward to say the supermodel had shared nothing but fond memories of Bill and Camille Cosby through the years.
You can watch the full interview here.
What do you think of Pressley’s comments?