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The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston
is scheduled to hear arguments by lawyers for Katherine Mae
McKee, who claimed Cosby defamed her by denying her claims,
which she made in an interview with the New York Daily News in
2014.
She is one of dozens of women who made allegations of sexual
assault by Cosby going back decades, shattering his
family-friendly reputation built upon a long career highlighted
by his starring role in the 1980s television comedy "The Cosby
Show."
Most of the allegations are too old to be criminally prosecuted,
though Cosby is awaiting an April re-trial in Pennsylvania on
charges he sexually assaulted a former basketball coach at his
alma mater, Temple University.
Cosby, 80, has denied wrongdoing in all the cases, saying any
encounters with his accusers were consensual.
McKee appeared in a 1971 episode of "The Bill Cosby Show." She
sued the entertainer in December 2015, a year after telling the
New York Daily News that Cosby raped her in a Detroit hotel room
in 1974.
The day the Daily News published its article, a lawyer for Cosby
wrote a letter to the newspaper calling the article
"defamatory," characterizing McKee's claims as "wild" and saying
the accusations could be proven inaccurate.
The Daily News subsequently published an article about the
letter. McKee, who was living in Nevada at the time, then sued,
claiming that Cosby defamed her by saying she had lied in making
her allegations.
U.S. District Judge Mark Mastroianni dismissed the lawsuit in
February, saying Cosby's statements were protected by the First
Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which protects the right to
free speech.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond; Editing by Scott Malone)
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