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Among Bill Cosby’s accusers, a San Diego woman feared for her life

( / The Associated Press)
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Amid denials from the entertainer's legal team, there is a San Diego connection to TV and comedy legend Bill Cosby's growing sexual assault scandal.

Tamara Green — Associated Press
Tamara Green — Associated Press
( / Associated Press)

One of the accusers, former lawyer Tamara Green, lives outside San Diego. She told The Daily Mail this week that Cosby, now 77, "attacked me and has done the same to dozens of women that I know of."

She said the incident happened in the 1970s when she was an actress and model in her 20s in Los Angeles and added, "The trauma of that assault never really goes away. It's as fresh in my mind as it was the next day. And women all over the country live with that."

Friday night, Cosby performed in Florida and show-goers were met outside by protesters and supporters, holding signs that said things like, "Rape is no joke" and "I Love Bill Cosby." Read on for reaction from inside the show.

This week, Cosby's comeback ran aground as Netflix postponed a comedy special, NBC scrapped a comedy series in development, TV Land stopped airing "The Cosby Show" reruns and venues canceled several scheduled performances. The allegations against Cosby, largely disregarded for a decade, resurfaced this year in a February Gawker article, a profanity-laced October comedy routine by Hannibal Buress and a series of accusations by women in interviews, 13 as of Friday night, including one who said she believes Cosby drugged and touched her during a relationship that started when she was 15, and Green.

Hannibal Buress on Bill Cosby

From the Daily Mail:

Green, 66, who lives near San Diego, gave explicit details to MailOnline of how Cosby allegedly drugged her with a powerful sedative in order to attack her.

She claims the star gave her two pills when she was sick with the flu, pretended he wanted to care for her, offered to take her home, and once there he stripped her naked, groped and kissed her before pleasuring himself sexually as she screamed for help.

Describing the horrifying experience she said: 'He took my clothes off, touched me up and masturbated next to me. I was so stoned, I thought I was dying.

'I didn't know how far he was going to take it, he had drugged me, I thought he could do anything, I thought he could kill me.'

Interest in the Cosby scandal has soared over the past two weeks after a series of women made similar claims, most saying he drugged and assaulted them in the 1970s. Accusations are so frequent that The New York Times ran a story headlined "7th Accuser Joins Claims of Assault by Bill Cosby" on page B4 Friday.

Worldwide Google 'Bill Cosby' searches

Cosby's lawyers have "routinely characterized such allegations as unfounded," The Times reported. Cosby himself has stayed quiet, including most notably silence during an interview with NPR's Scott Simon when asked repeatedly about the allegations. A subsequent statement from Cosby dismissed them as "decade-old, discredited allegations."

'I have to ask the question.'

Green, who spoke out against Cosby in 2005, published an essay in ET online Wednesday, suggesting Cosby is a "villain" in his own story and saying she sleeps with her clothes on even now and checks her windows because she doesn't "know from where the next attack might come." She also said he should "take up for women," get a new show on NBC and "work every day of the rest of his natural life" because he employs so many people when he works. Opinion on his future is deeply divided.

Green wrote: "I can only say this to Bill Cosby: You have very few chances left to do anything heroic, old man. You should try."

She told People magazine: "I don't dispute the fact the man has done much good, but he is a flawed man."

"He's not the fictional Dr. Huxtable or the Jell-O salesman," she added. "This is Bill Cosby who for years felt entitled because of his status as a celebrity and because for years he was above the law. And he'll always be a small man because a great man would embrace his faults as well as his talents."

Cosby was the first African-American to star in a TV drama when he appeared on "I Spy" in 1965, according to an Associated Press timeline of the scandal. He later starred in "Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids" in the 1970s and "The Cosby Show" in the 1980s.

Allegations of sexual assault by Cosby first surfaced in 2005. In 2006, a federal lawsuit one woman filed against Cosby was settled out of court for an undisclosed sum. That woman's lawyers filed paperwork that listed nine women, including Green and eight Jane Does, as witnesses who would testify about prior sexual assaults.

Friday night, the allegations increased interest in his Florida show, packed by Cosby fans.

"This is his audience.'

Elsewhere, reaction was mixed.
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