PERSON: Joan Tarshis

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A woman who previously accused Bill Cosby of sexual assault has filed a lawsuit against him under a New York law that’s set to expire this week.

In 2014, journalist and publicist Joan Tarshis told CNN the actor had sexually assaulted her decades prior, when she was a teenager. Those alleged incidents are repeated in the lawsuit filed Friday in New York County Supreme Court.

The lawsuit accuses Cosby of battery, assault, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and false imprisonment. Tarshis is seeking unspecified damages.

The lawsuit was brought under New York’s Adult Survivors Act, which was signed into law in May 2022. Six months after signing, the law opened a one-year lookback window for adult survivors of sexual offenses to sue their alleged abusers, even if the statute of limitations on their claims had expired. Because many victims of sexual abuse can take years to publicly speak about their traumas, the lookback window is intended to give them an opportunity to have their day in court.

>> CNN