TJ Walker examines the Bill Cosby sexual assault allegations, citing fifteen women's accusations and a 1969 comedy album that referenced drugging women. He explains why prosecutors declined earlier cases due to statute of limitations and lack of DNA evidence, then outlines three paths Cosby could take: retire quietly, mount a public defense, or confess with reparations.
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Actor and comedian Bill Cosby in the news, a crisis situation regarding allegations of rape. This is a bizarre situation, ladies and gentlemen. Now, I've advised clients in tough situations before regarding crisis communications. I don't know what I would do if I were Bill Cosby's communications consultant or crisis expert. Here's the situation, folks, at this point, and they're coming out of the woodwork every day. Fifteen women have accused Bill Cosby of being social, being friendly, inviting them up for a drink and then drugging them. And then they wake up the next day and he's obviously had sex with them. Now, when you're a Hollywood celebrity, certainly you can attract crazies and certainly people can be attracted to wealthy, influential people and just make up stuff. But I cannot under any circumstances imagine 15 separate women all coming up with essentially the same allegation. None of them are asking for money. The statute of limitations is long gone. So I really can't see under any circumstances how a fair minded person listening to him listening to these women would conclude anything other than that Bill Cosby is guilty of repeated serial rape. To make matters worse, he has a comedy album that came out in 1969 where he makes fun of and talks in explicit detail about drugging women and having sex with them. Now he has made matters even worse by going on talk shows, refusing to talk about it. He was on npr, not exactly the most salacious of media outlets, and when asked questions, shook his head like, that's supposed to be cute on radio. He's suggested that somehow he's been found innocent. He's never been found innocent. What has happened is because of the nature of these types of rapes, women often didn't come forward until later. At that point, there was no way for prosecutors to gather the necessary DNA evidence. So it makes complete sense to me as to why prosecutors felt they didn't have a strong case. Nothing to do with the truthfulness of the women making these claims. So what's going to happen to Bill Cosby? I think he's got to make a tough choice. He could just simply retire, never do another interview, don't worry about his new movie coming out on Netflix or anyplace else and just retreat into a mansion somewhere and never read another newspaper and try to enjoy. I mean, that's one scenario. Another scenario is to try to put together some sort of public defense, talk about how this was some misunderstanding. But for the life of me, I can't understand how he could make that case if one person is making an allegation and you can then prove, well, you weren't even in that city when this person is making this allegation. But he hasn't tried to do that, so I don't see how he actually makes a defense. The third option is to come clean and say, yes, I did this. I had a serial killer problem. I am guilty. I want to apologize to these women, apologize to the whole world. And I'm going to take 90% or the vast bulk of my wealth, which is presumably hundreds of millions of dollars, and a, you know, give a million dollars or so to each one of these women, And B, give 100 million or more to either rape awareness centers or rape crisis counseling centers. Something that, that actually is making the world a better place. And then just tell people, I was wrong and I'm begging for forgiveness. Let the chips fall for that. I do think that some people would say, okay, he did a horrible thing. He's done his best to make up for it so we can, with some minor difficulty, at least allow his shows to continue to air on TV and Netflix. And as it is right now, I think any TV network, any Netflix, any organization that dares to run any of his programs is going to be seen as somehow condoning rape. And that's not a position any media executive wants to be in. That's my. It's a sad situation. I don't want to sound like I'm feeling sad for Bill Cosby. It's sad for women who've been drugged and raped. I mean, that's where our sympathies should lie, primarily. What's your take on this situation? Post your comments here. Thanks.
