Two More Cosby Accusers Come Forward
BURNETT: Welcome back to OUTFRONT. Two more Bill Cosby accusers speak out. So far at least, a dozen women have broken their silence. We're going to hear more about their stories in just a moment. But as you are aware, Cosby has long denied these allegations. He's never been formally charged. At this moment, it appears he still has fans. He is performing at this moment actually in Melbourne, Florida, as part of his comedy tour. Alina Machado is OUTFRONT in Melbourne. And, Alina, the show is about to get started. What have you been seeing?</s>ALINA MACHADO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Erin, the show is just about to get under way here. He definitely has many supporters here who come out here, who are coming out here tonight to show their support and their love for Bill Cosby. We have also seen police officers both inside and outside of the theater and they seem to be ready to deal with any potential disruptions.</s>MACHADO (voice-over): Bill Cosby might not get the warmest welcome tonight thanks to a Central Florida radio host who said he is willing to pay a thousand for this --</s>RADIO HOST: All you have to do is stand up, you have to film it or record the audio, stand up and one of the quiet portions of the beginning of Bill Cosby's performance and scream out something about the rape allegations.</s>MACHADO: There are now 12 women alleging Cosby sexually assaulted them decades ago. The 77-year-old has refused to address the allegations publicly himself. But he's feeling the heat. His performance next week at a Las Vegas casino canceled, along with at least five other appearances next year. But last night, Cosby performed in the Bahamas, in front of an African-American women's group. While he did not address the rape allegations, he did joke about being, quote, "an evil man".</s>BILL COSBY, COMEDIAN: And parents -- parents are coming out and taking their children home, saying to me, "Bill Cosby, you are an evil man." We will never eat your Jell-O pudding again.</s>MACHADO: And when he left the stage, the audience gave him a standing ovation. The group released a statement saying in part, "The schedule for Bill Cosby to perform was done in good faith and in advance of the allegations coming to light. Recent accusations against Bill Cosby are alarming and unsettling. We trust that the appropriate authorities will conduct a thorough investigation." Back here in Melbourne, the show will go on with heighten security because of the threat of protests.</s>MACHADO: Now, so far, we have not seen any protesters. We do have a producer sitting inside the theater right now and he's telling us that an announcer went on and said there may be disruptions during the show. He told the audience not to confront this person and to stay calm. Erin, the producer who's inside, Javier De Diego (ph), told me that it is pretty full in there.</s>BURNETT: All right. Thank you very much. And, of course, if there is anything that happens, I know Javier and Alina are going to tell us about it. In the meantime, I want to bring in Paul Callan, our legal analyst and a criminal defense attorney, along with trial attorney Lisa Bloom, who is a legal analyst for Avvo.com. All right. Good to have both of you with us again. Paul, you just saw Alina's report. Bill Cosby going ahead, he has cancelled a few, but going ahead with his show last night, going ahead with his show tonight. Last night, it was a black women's group and he got a standing ovation. What do you think?</s>PAUL CALLAN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: I'm kind of stunned actually, because I thought, and having, you know, seen these play out in court, there is so much damage usually to a male's reputation when he's subjected to these charges, and now, we are up to 12 women. It's hard to believe Bill Cosby can survive, you know, the damage to his reputation. So, a cheering crowd there really does survive me.</s>BURNETT: Lisa, does it surprise you? I mean, it was sort of stunning.</s>LISA BLOOM, LEGAL ANALYST, AVVO.COM: You know, if you need further proof that we live in a rape culture by which I mean a culture that condone even lapse at rape, it's Bill Cosby joking that he is an evil man and the audience laughing and giving him a standing ovation. By my count, seven or eight women have come out publicly using their faces and their names, talking about him, accusing him of raping them, not asking for anything. Up to 15 if you include the anonymous ones. I mean, how many women do you need to counterbalance the word of one big celebrity? I think six, eight, 15, that's enough.</s>BURNETT: And, Paul, there is now -- one of the new women that came forward said that this happened when she was underage. So, I understand that this could be different in state by state. But what is your understanding then? Because we keep being told that we're never going to know for sure, because the statute of limitations expired on these cases, because most of them were a long ago. But if you're underage when it happened, is there a statute of limitations?</s>CALLAN: Well, it's changed tremendously in recent years.</s>BURNETT: Yes.</s>CALLAN: It used to be, we had these strict limitations on when you could bring these actions, but to protect children, virtually, all of the state legislatures have made them very long statute of limitations now and much easier if you're abused as a child. But there is a catch. And of the catches is, that the statute had to be amended during the time period when your incident occurred and you'll get the benefit of the longer statute. And it is a complicated analysis, so maybe there will be a case and maybe not that can be brought.</s>BURNETT: And, Lisa, I want to follow up on a point that Paul is making with what our producer, Javier de Diego (ph), as you just heard Alina say, he's in the room. So, Bill Cosby just walked out to tell our viewers, it just happened a minute ago, he stood on stage and got a one full minute standing ovation from this audience. I guess my question to you is, isn't this the verdict? Is this the bottom line? Obviously, this comes down to whether he is commercially viable and certainly, what we have now just seen again tonight would indicate he is.</s>BLOOM: Listen, people love celebrities. No matter what they are accused of. They love Paula Deen. They love Mike Tyson, who is a convicted rapist, right? We have a short memory. And as I say, people I think overall are not as upset about rape as you would think. We all say it's a terrible thing, but when confronted with it -- for example, when I'm trying a case of rape, you know, it can be hard to get a jury to convict. Same thing with child molestation. We all think of the abstract, it is a terrible thing. But when we are confronted with an actual person who's accused of it, we don't want to believe it. And I think denial is very heavy.</s>CALLAN: And in fairness to the crowd, I think a lot of Americans say he hasn't been convicted of anything, these are just allegations that are made many years after the incidents, and they are giving him the benefit of the doubt since there's been no trial.</s>BURNETT: Right.</s>BLOOM: And he hasn't sued anyone for defamation either.</s>CALLAN: That's what's going on here.</s>BURNETT: Right. Now, what about that point she made, the issue that he hasn't sued for defamation. I mean, we had a woman on last night, Tamara Green, a very disturbing and frightening retelling of what she said happened to her. But she came forward with this first in 2005 and now, it's ten years later, she's still talking about it. He never sued her for defamation. Wouldn't you sue for defamation if it weren't true?</s>CALLAN: Lisa makes a good point there. Yes, she could in theory. But anybody who does defamation law and sees these lawsuits, they end up being damage done to both sides because there is so much mud thrown in the case. And so, he's obviously made a decision, I'll just forget about it, nobody's going to listen to her and I'll go on with my life.</s>BURNETT: But she was at that time, I want to note, she did do an interview on "The Today Show". I mean, it wasn't as if, it was just know, in some random place. It was very public.</s>CALLAN: It didn't resonate obviously because it's only now that this thing is blowing up. So, that strategy seemed to work for him previously.</s>BLOOM: And a lot of celebrities bring these cases and I would take issue with the term of mud throwing when we are taking about a rape allegations. This is very, very serious. He has his pit bulls out there calling people liars in the public domain. You know, if he is really serious about this, let him bring a defamation case, truth is on the defense, and then we can have the court hearing that he claims he really wants.</s>BURNETT: All right. Thanks very much to both of you. And OUTFRONT next, two more women accusing Bill Cosby of sexual assault. Plus, at the University of Virginia, a women allegedly raped by seven guys out of frat party. But we didn't hear about it until we heard about it until "Rolling Stone" published the report, charging that there is a rape epidemic at UVA. We have a full report.