Bill Cosby’s lawyers are seeking New York magazine notes of interviews with alleged victims of the comedian, with the magazine objecting on the basis of confidentiality.
The application was made in Manhattan this week with the Cosby legal team wanting “all documents and things relating to any communications” between the magazine and the seven women who are suing him in a Massachusetts federal court for defamation.
Bill Cosby, 78, was arrested in December 2015 and charged with sexually assaulting Andrea Constand in 2004 in Pennsylvania. But the allegations relating to his conduct covers a host of women.
The women interviewed by the magazine were among 35 featured in a July 2015 cover story in New York about their having been “assaulted by Bill Cosby” over the years.
The NY Daily Post reported that Cosby’s lawyer, Marshall Searcy III, argues that to defend himself in Massachusets, Cosby needs the magazine’s interview notes and any unreleased video or taped recordings made of those interviews with the seven women.
New York Magazine however disagree, arguing that the material is not only confidential but protected by New York State’s shield law and Cosby’s desires are “outweighed by the public interest in protecting the editorial work product and confidential information and sources of journalists.”
Searcy said there is nothing confidential about the sources because the article identifies all the women. Further, he argued that and it’s important for Cosby’s lawyers to know if the plaintiffs’ allegations “have changed over time and … whether or not Plaintiffs were influenced or guided during their interviews” by the reporters.
