Nevada
Bill Cosby sued by 9 more women in Nevada for alleged decades-old sexual assaults
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Nine more women are accusing Bill Cosby of sexual assault in a lawsuit that alleges he used his “enormous power, fame and prestige” to victimize them.
A lawsuit filed Wednesday in federal court in Nevada alleges that the women were individually drugged and assaulted between approximately 1979 and 1992 in Las Vegas, Reno and Lake Tahoe homes, dressing rooms and hotels.
One woman alleges that Cosby, claiming to be her acting mentor, lured her from New York to Nevada, where he drugged her in a hotel room with what he had claimed to be non-alcoholic sparkling cider and then raped her.
The 85-year-old former “Cosby Show” star has now been accused of rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment by more than 60 women. He has denied all allegations involving sex crimes. He was the first celebrity tried and convicted in the #MeToo era — and spent nearly three years at a state prison near Philadelphia before a higher court threw out the conviction and released him in 2021.
Earlier this year, a Los Angeles jury awarded $500,000 to a woman who said Cosby sexually abused her at the Playboy Mansion when she was 16 in 1975.
The Nevada lawsuit came only a few weeks after Gov. Joe Lombardo signed a bill that eliminated a two-year deadline for adults to file sexual abuse cases. Similar suits have followed other “lookback laws” in other states.
One of the plaintiffs, Lise-Lotte Lublin, a Nevada native, had advocated for the change. She had previously alleged that Cosby gave her spiked drinks and raped her at a Las Vegas hotel in 1989.
The Associated Press does not identify people who say they have been sexually assaulted unless they come forward publicly.
“For years I have fought for survivors of sexual assault and today is the first time I will be able to fight for myself,” Lotte-Lublin said in a statement cited by the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “With the new law change, I now have the ability to take my assailant Bill Cosby to court. My journey has just begun, but I am grateful for this opportunity to find justice.”
In California, a former Playboy model who alleges Cosby drugged and sexually assaulted her and another woman at his home in 1969 sued him on June 1 under a new California law that suspends the statute of limitations on sex abuse claims.
Cosby publicist Andrew Wyatt blasted such laws in a statement Wednesday.
“Mr. Cosby is a Citizen of these United States but these judges and lawmakers are consistently allowing these civil suits to flood their dockets—knowing that these women are not fighting for victims—but for their addiction to massive amounts of media attention and greed,” Wyatt said.
“From this day forward, we will not continue to allow these women to parade various accounts of an alleged allegation against Mr. Cosby anymore without vetting them in the court of public opinion and inside of the courtroom,” Wyatt said.
In the latest suit, the women contend that Cosby “used his enormous power, fame, and prestige, and claimed interest in helping them and/or their careers as a pretense to isolate and sexually assault them.”
Nevada
Chasing Horse charged with more sex crimes in Canadian case
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Nathan Chasing Horse has been charged in Alberta, Canada, with new sex crimes in the latest criminal case to be brought against the former “Dances With Wolves” actor, who remains jailed in Las Vegas as he awaits trial in a sweeping sexual abuse case that stunned Indian Country and has helped law enforcement in two countries corroborate long-standing allegations against him.
At a virtual news conference Wednesday, Sgt. Nancy Farmer of the Tsuut’ina Nation Police Service acknowledged that the Alberta case is largely symbolic. Chasing Horse — who faces not only decades in a Nevada prison if convicted in the Las Vegas case but criminal prosecution in five jurisdictions — might not ever return to Canada to answer to these charges.
“At the end of the day,” Farmer said, “it is important for us to have these warrants in the system so our victims know they’ve been heard. It’s extremely important that we continue to support them that way.”
Chasing Horse has declined multiple requests from The Associated Press to interview him at the county jail, and his public defender in Las Vegas, Kristy Holston, said she has no comment on the new charges. It wasn’t immediately clear whether Chasing Horse has an attorney in Canada who could comment on his behalf.
Farmer said the 47-year-old faces nine charges in Alberta, including three counts of sexual exploitation and four counts of sexual assault. The crimes in their jurisdiction date back to 2005, she said.
Chasing Horse was born on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota, home to the Sicangu Sioux, one of the seven tribes of the Lakota nation. He is widely known for his portrayal of Smiles a Lot in Kevin Costner’s Oscar-winning film.
After starring in the 1990 movie, Chasing Horse had built a name for himself among tribes in the U.S. and Canada as a self-proclaimed medicine man who could communicate with higher beings. Police and prosecutors in Las Vegas have accused him of using that position to lead a cult, gain access to vulnerable Indigenous women and girls, and take underage wives starting in the early 2000s.
He is charged in the Las Vegas case with 18 felonies that include sexual assault of a minor, child abuse and kidnapping. He also faces criminal prosecution in the British Columbia village of Keremeos, the U.S. District Court in Nevada, and on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation in Montana.
Court proceedings in the Las Vegas case have been put on hold indefinitely as Chasing Horse awaits a decision on his appeal filed last month to the Nevada Supreme Court asking for his indictment to be tossed.
Chasing Horse and his public defenders have said in legal filings that his accusers wanted to have sex with him. One of the women was younger than 16 — the age of consent in Nevada — when she says Chasing Horse began abusing her.
Arizona
Woman alleges sexual assault by former MLB pitcher Bauer
PHOENIX (AP) — An Arizona woman has accused former major league pitcher Trevor Bauer of sexual assault, alleging in a lawsuit updated this week that he held a knife at her throat and choked her until she passed out during a rape that left her pregnant in late 2020.
Bauer was never arrested or charged and he has countersued, denying the allegations and accusing the woman of faking a pregnancy and trying to extort money from him.
“Trevor Bauer categorically denies this woman’s unhinged allegations,” the player’s co-agents, Jon Fetterolf and Rachel Luba, said in a statement Wednesday.
They said she had made several million-dollar demands against Bauer over two years, prompting him to file a criminal complaint against her.
Scottsdale Police Officer Aaron Bolin confirmed Wednesday that Bauer filed a criminal complaint on Jan. 24 alleging the woman was trying to extort him, but detectives did not recommend charges to Maricopa County prosecutors. Bolin said there were also no charges recommended after the woman filed a complaint against Bauer on Dec. 20, alleging a sexual assault two years before.
The woman’s accusations are laid out in a civil suit updated this week in Maricopa County Superior Court. She first sued the former Cy Young Award winner in December, and Bauer countersued in April.
The Associated Press does not typically identify people who say they have been victims of sexual assault. The woman’s attorney did not immediately respond Wednesday to a voicemail seeking additional comment.
In his countersuit, Bauer said he had one consensual sexual encounter with the woman in 2020. He said the woman later said she was pregnant and demanded $1.6 million to end the pregnancy.
Bauer said he refused to pay that amount, but told the woman he would support her decision concerning the pregnancy and pay any medical costs, as well as child support. His said in his lawsuit that he ultimately paid $8,761 for the expenses related to the woman’s reported pregnancy and its subsequent termination.
The woman said in an updated complaint filed Tuesday that she ultimately decided not to terminate the pregnancy, but had a miscarriage.
Bauer was suspended by Major League Baseball after a woman he met in San Diego alleged that he had beaten and sexually abused her in 2021. He denied the charges and said that anything that happened between them was consensual. Bauer was not arrested or charged.
After Bauer’s suspension ended, the Los Angeles Dodgers cut him and no team picked him up. He now plays in Japan.
California
Former first responder sentenced for selling fatal dose of fentanyl
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A Southern California first responder who sold a fatal dose of fentanyl to a co-worker was sentenced Wednesday to more than 30 years in prison, federal prosecutors said.
Cruz Noel Quintero, 43, was convicted last September of distributing fentanyl resulting in death, along with multiple felony weapons charges, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a news release.
Prosecutors said at trial that Quintero, a former EMT for a hospital, sold cocaine, methamphetamine and other drugs out of his home in Long Beach and shipped large quantities of the narcotics across the country.
In 2019, Quintero sold a white powder he claimed was cocaine for $100 to a co-worker in the parking lot outside the hospital’s emergency room, prosecutors said. The man was found dead in Las Vegas the following day, and toxicologists later determined he overdosed on fentanyl.
During the subsequent investigation, law enforcement found drug paraphernalia and more than a dozen firearms, including machine guns, at Quintero’s residence, officials said.
Quintero has been in custody since his arrest in May 2019.
Alabama
Gov.’s former chief legal adviser, to run for Supreme Court chief justice
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Republican Bryan Taylor, a former state senator and former chief legal adviser to Gov. Kay Ivey, announced Wednesday that he is running for chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court.
The election for chief justice will be held next year. Chief Justice Tom Parker cannot run again because Alabama law prohibits judges from being elected or appointed after age 70.
The Alabama chief justice serves on the state’s highest court, and also serves as the administrative head of the state court system.
Taylor was elected to the the Alabama Senate in 2010 and is best known for authoring the revamp of the state’s ethics law that was later used to prosecute former House Speaker Mike Hubbard. Taylor did not seek a second term in 2014.
Before joining the Senate, Taylor was a legal adviser and policy director for Gov. Bob Riley. He later served as Ivey’s chief legal adviser.
Taylor is an Iraq War veteran and served as a military prosecutor and lawyer with the Army Judge Advocate General Corps. He continues to serve in the Alabama National Guard. He was awarded the Bronze Star Medal for his service in Iraq.
Taylor recently served as deputy legal counsel for legislative affairs for the Alabama Republican Party. He is stepping down from the position as he runs for office.
