A lawsuit filed against Bill Cosby by a woman who claims the comedian drugged and raped her in the 1970s has been joined by two other women.
Realizing that the statute of limitations would rule out any possible sexual assault charge against Cosby, Tamara Green filed a defamation suit in early December against Cosby, alleging that his public denial of her claims has branded her a liar in the public eye.
According to CNN, Linda Joy Traitz said this week that she and Therese Serignese are also joining the suit after their claims were also denied by Cosby's representatives.
Before the most recent two women joined the suit, Cosby's attorney, Martin Singer, said the rape allegations against his client were "ridiculous" and reasoned that it doesn't make sense that "so many people would have said nothing, done nothing, and made no reports to law enforcement or asserted civil claims if they thought they had been assaulted over a span of so many years."
Each of the women's claims follows a similar theme.
Green claims Cosby gave her what he said were pills for her cold, but turned out to be a rape drug. He then took off her clothes and assaulted her, she says.
Traitz said that she was working as a waitress in a L.A. restaurant Cosby co-owned when she was 18 or 19, and he offered her a ride home. She agreed to the ride, and was subsequently assaulted after "he kept offering" some pills.
Serignese was a 19-year-old model visiting Las Vegas decades ago when she was offered tickets to Cosby's stand-up comedy show. She was then invited backstage, told to take some pills, and was subsequently raped, she claims.
In other Cosby news, Keshia Knight Pulliam, who played Rudy Huxtable on "The Cosby Show," was fired on the new season of "The Celebrity Apprentice" Sunday night after she refused to make a fundraising call to Cosby.
After the show aired, host Donald Trump explained on Twitter that the episode was filmed before the spate of recent allegations against Cosby.
"I did not feel it was necessary," Pulliam said on "Access Hollywood" Monday. "I hadn't talked to Mr. Cosby on the phone or in person in the last five years and it would have just been tacky to call him and say, 'Oh yeah, by the way, you know, I need this money.'"