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Former NBC employee Frank Scotti claims Bill Cosby used to give him money to pay off women.
Scotti, who worked as a facilities manager at the Brooklyn studio where The Cosby Show was filmed, told the New York Daily News that Cosby had him hand out monthly payments to eight women between 1989-1990.
“He had everybody fooled,” Scotti told the Daily News. “Nobody suspected.”
Read more Bill Cosby Finds Protesters and Supporters at Florida Stand-Up Show
Scotti said the women received up to $2,000 a month, with Shawn Thompson, whose daughter Autumn Jackson alleged that Cosby was her father, reportedly receiving more than $100,000 following the 1974 start of their alleged affair. Cosby, who has faced a string of decades-old sexual abuse allegations in recent weeks, denied the paternity claim.
Scotti, who saved copies of the money orders to four women, believes that Cosby was sleeping with all the women who were getting money. “Why else would he be sending money?” Scotti asked. “He was sending these women $2,000 a month. What else could I think?”
He said that Cosby once handed him “a satchel of money, all $100 bills,” and would ask Scotti to put his own name on the money orders. “He was covering himself by having my name on it,” he said. “It was a cover-up. I realized it later.”
One woman contacted by the Daily News, whose name was on the money order receipts, said the payments covered her son’s private school tuition.
Read more ‘Cosby Show’ Producers Call Assault Allegations “Beyond Our Knowledge or Comprehension”
Another woman named on the receipts was Angela Leslie, who has accused Cosby of rubbing her hand on his penis in a Las Vegas hotel in 1992. Leslie told the Daily News that the money was for a plane ticket to California two years before the alleged hotel incident, although she got sick and returned the ticket.
Scotti also claimed that a New York City modeling agency would send women to Cosby’s dressing room, some of whom Scotti claims were as young as 16. “‘I want you to keep that one girl here,’ ” Scotti recalled Cosby telling him, with Cosby claiming it was to discuss a role on the show. “Then he’d tell me, ‘Stand outside the door and don’t let anyone in.’ ” He added that Cosby had him find an apartment for one model from the agency.
Scotti said he eventually stopped working for the show because he was bothered by what Cosby was having him do. “He looked at me and said, ‘Leave right now,’ ” Scotti said about Cosby’s reaction when he told him he wouldn’t be working with him anymore.
Cosby attorney Marty Singer dismissed Scotti’s allegations. “How would Scotti know if a woman was a model or a secretary?” Singer told the Daily News. “It appears that his story is pure speculation so that he can get his 15 minutes of fame.” Singer has also said that the numerous abuse claims against Cosby are “utter nonsense.”
Cosby has mostly remained silent on the allegations, telling a Florida paper on Friday that he doesn’t have to “answer to innuendos.”
Email: Ryan.Gajewski@pgmedia.org
Twitter: @_RyanGajewski
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