Bill Cosby is pursuing legal action against the state of Pennsylvania to recoup ‘hundreds of thousands’ of taxpayer dollars as compensation
Bill Cosby‘s spokesman has said he hopes to recoup damages for wrongful incarceration from the state of Pennsylvania, and accused attorneys for Cosby’s accusers of having ‘an ax to grind against black men.’
Cosby was released from prison on June 30 after serving two years behind bars, when the Pennsylvania Supreme Court vacated his 2018 conviction for sexual assault, citing violations of his due process rights.
Now, his publicist Andrew Wyatt says that Cosby hopes to win ‘a couple hundred grand’ in compensation for the time he spend behind bars on the now-vacated conviction
‘We are looking at what recourse, what legal recourse we can take against the state of Pennsylvania,’ Wyatt told The Domenick Nati Show in an interview on Friday. ‘We are looking at all legal angles for those things right now.’
Isn’t he owed money for every day that he’s in jail or am I wrong?’ Nati, himself a celebrity publicist, asked Wyatt.
‘He’s owed money. It’s a lot of owed money,’ Wyatt responded. ‘Our attorneys are filing the paperwork now. He is owed a lot of money.’
Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf, a Democrat, in February proposed paying anyone wrongly convicted $50,000 for every year spent in prison.
Previously, Pennsylvania did not offer compensation to former inmates who were wrongfully convicted.
The funds would potentially be available to exonerees, whose convictions were overturned on the basis of actual innocence, as well as convicts such as Cosby who had their convictions vacated on legal grounds.
n the interview, Wyatt went on to levy scathing attacks against Gloria Allred and her daughter Lisa Bloom, both attorneys who practice separately, but who both represent several of Cosby’s scores of accusers.
Wyatt called the probe into Cosby ‘the greatest ‘Ocean’s Eleven’ extortion scheme led by Gloria Allred and Lisa Bloom’ and said he believes the case was ‘about money.’
‘I think her and her daughter have an axe to grind against black men,’ Wyatt added, going on to name several high profile sexual misconduct claims against black celebrities the two attorneys had participated in.
Bloom and Allred did not immediately respond to an inquiry from DailyMail.com on Friday night, but responded to Wyatt’s ‘extortion’ claim in sharply worded statements to Fox News.
Allred told the outlet that ‘any allegation of extortion is defamatory, and appears to be an attempt by Mr. Cosby’s representative to deflect attention away from the allegations by more than 60 women who have accused Mr. Cosby of victimizing them.’
‘Choose your words carefully,’ Bloom warned Wyatt in her statement.
‘We already scored one spectacular win against Bill Cosby in our defamation litigation after another of his reps spoke recklessly,’ she added. ‘Shall we file another?’
