Bill Cosby was accused by a Californian woman of drug and rap her in the Elvis Suite of the Las Vegas Hilton, almost forty years ago, when she was a 17-year-old Virgin.
Chelan Lasha, 54, brought the lawsuit on Monday at the American court in Las Vegas and accused Cosby, now 86, to have lured her to his hotel room with promises to help her modeling career.
Lasha, who in April 2018 testified in the new process against Cosby on accusation of sexual abuse of another woman, Andrea Constand, demands compensation for the physical injuries she would have suffered, and the trauma that she still undergoes.
She showed off a preview of her suit on December 6, writing on Facebook: ‘Looking forward to a happier New Year!!!
‘Mr. Bill Cosby, I’ll never give up, just look when I see you, in the courtroom I Love You All by My Sister Survivor!!!
‘I’m not going to give up. I stand, proud and strong.’
The 54-year-old Chelan Lasha filed a lawsuit in Las Vegas on Monday in which he accused Bill Cosby of raping her in 1986.
Cosby is pictured on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson in September 1986
Lasha claims in her court case, obtained by The Las Vegas Review journalthat her stepmother worked at the same company as Cosby: he saw Lasha’s photo on the woman’s desk and was interested.
Lasha says that Cosby contacted her grandmother – with whom she lived in North Las Vegas, with her parents in and out of prison – to say she had a future in acting and modeling, and that he would help her.
He visited their home four times over the next two years, Lasha said, and earned their trust.
Cosby told Lasha that he would be her ‘father figure’ in the industry, and in October 1986 he called her grandmother to say that he had a photographer ready in his hotel, and that he wanted her to read a script.
Lasha had a small sinus infection, but was determined not to miss her chance, so she went to the Elvis Suite in the Hilton on behalf of Cosby – a 500 square meter penthouse on the 30th floor, where The King lived during a performance in the hotel from 1969. -76.
The bedroom in the Elvis Suite – where Lasha claims Cosby raped her in 1986
Elvis lived at the Westgate hotel – which was then the Las Vegas Hilton – while he was performing in the city
She said a photographer took some pictures, and Cosby told her to go to the bathroom and put on a robe.
Cosby, she claims, then gave her a glass of amaretto and a blue capsule, of which he said it was an antihistamine to help her with her sinus infection.
When the photographer left, a script coach arrived and helped Lasha read the script before leaving.
Lasha said she felt strange and Cosby led her to the bedroom and laid her on the bed.
Lasha claims in the lawsuit that Cosby removed her clothing from under the robe and sexually assaulted her.
She said she blacked out until she heard Cosby clapping and repeatedly saying, “Daddy says wake up.”
Cosby then showed her the door, got into her car and drove away, told her sister and a friend what had happened, according to the lawsuit.
When Cosby called her a few days later, he would have told her that “people who talk too much can be calmed,” the lawsuit said.
Lasha told her story in a court in Philadelphia in 2018 – the second of five prosecutors who were called to support the case of Constand, a former basketball coach of Temple University who told him to have drugged her at home in 2004 and had sexually abused her .
Cosby is pictured in June 2021, after being released from prison after three years
“He put me in bed; After that I couldn’t move anymore,” she told the court.
‘He kept squeezing my chest and humping my leg. When I woke up, I was naked. “
Lasha said she heard him growling, and demonstrated to the court the noise he made.
She then looked at Cosby from the stands and said to him, “You remember, don’t you, Mr. Cosby?”
His legal team immediately objected.
Constand won her case and Cosby was sentenced to three to 10 years in prison.
But he was released in June 2021, after just three years behind bars, after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned the conviction, citing violations of his due process rights.
Cosby has not yet responded to Lasha’s complaint.