Cosby’s accusers face doubts, questions

ATLANTA — For weeks the question has been asked across social media, on news talk shows and in casual conversations among friends: Why did it take many of Bill Cosby’s accusers decades to come forward with allegations of sexual assault against him?

If the attacks happened, why wait so long to say so?

Cosby has been charged with no crime, and he hasn’t responded directly to the allegations. His reputation and career have been damaged, perhaps beyond repair.

Yet the shroud of public doubt cast over the nearly two dozen women who have come forward against him could do lasting damage to gains made in sexual assault awareness, say those who work with victims.

For the past 40 years, as advocates have worked to de-stigmatize what it means to be a victim of sexual violence, the number of reported assaults has increased, according to a 2004 Justice Department report. Even so, the majority of sexual assaults in the United States remain a secret. Just 36 percent of rapes and 26 percent of assaults are reported, the report estimates.

Among the top five reasons victims don’t come forward, apart from shame and guilt, is “fear of not being believed or of being accused of playing a role in the crime,” the report said.

Assault accusations have buffeted the 77-year-old comedian for years. But it wasn’t until this fall that the accounts from women claiming he had drugged and then violated them began to take hold. Seemingly, each week has brought a new accuser. Despite the similarity of their stories, each woman’s claim has been met with skepticism in some quarters.

The scrutiny of the women’s stories has come from some unexpected places.

“I think everybody pretty much feels, ‘Hey you know he didn’t do it,'” said Aaliyah Deggs, a sophomore at Spelman College, the historically black all-female institution. “If you’re telling the truth, why so late?”

She made her comments just weeks before her school officially suspended an endowed chair in Cosby’s name, made possible by a $20 million gift from the entertainer and his wife to the college in the late 1980s.

Comedian Whoopi Goldberg has voiced skepticism, grilling at least one accuser, model Beverly Johnson, during an appearance on “The View.” Grammy-winning singer Jill Scott tweeted her support of Cosby to thousands of followers, saying she wanted “proof” the alleged attacks happened.

Statistics on falsely reported sexual assaults are difficult to assess. A 2012 report published by the National Sexual Violence Resource Center puts the number of false reports at between 2 percent and 10 percent.

Even so, the implication that the women accusing Cosby are lying could have a chilling effect on women who may have been assaulted in the past but have been afraid to report it, said Nadine Kaslow, Chief Psychologist at Grady Memorial Hospital.

“It’s not easy to report an assault,” Kaslow said. “There’s the rape kit, the exam and, no matter how nice the people are asking the questions, it all feels intrusive, almost like you have to defend yourself and the truth.”

Public doubt “perpetuates why people are afraid to report,” said Kaslow.

“Reporting weeks, months or even years later, all of that is common behavior of a sexual assault survivor,” said Kesha Gibson-Carter, executive director of the Rape Crisis Center of the Coastal Empire in Savannah, Ga. “Shock, mental confusion, disorientation, self-blame, all of those are behaviors of a victim’s physical and psychological response to rape. Only in time are they better able to come to grips with what happened to them and are able to say, ‘Hey, this wasn’t my fault.’

“People engage in victim-blaming or not believing a victim because it’s easiest to do, rather than to think about the trauma a victim has gone through that caused them to delay reporting. And it’s even more disturbing when the doubt is expressed by a woman, because nationally more sexual violence survivors are women,” Gibson-Carter said.

One complicating factor in the Cosby case is that most of the women say they don’t remember exactly what happened to them because they believe they were drugged and blacked out prior to the claimed attacks. Advocates say it’s a description they hear repeatedly from women who have been given date-rape drugs. Talking about that clouded memory with a counselor is one thing; doing it publicly can open a person to ridicule.

“When rendered unconscious, how are they going to provide information that’s helpful to understand what happened to them?” said Ann Burdges, executive director of the Gwinnett Sexual Assault Center in Duluth, Ga. “They don’t understand what has happened to them, and the idea of it is sometimes paralyzing to people. And because the general public doesn’t want to believe that ‘Mr. Huxtable,’ someone a generation grew up with and trusted, would do this, this is like saying Mr. Rogers was a pedophile.”

Burdges is a former law enforcement investigator who dealt with sexual assault cases. She said the ones with multiple victims, foggy memories and delayed reporting are among the most complicated to understand, and even more difficult to prosecute.

It is unlikely that Cosby will ever face charges in any of these cases, largely because the statute of limitations has run out on many of the alleged incidents. Kaslow, Gibson-Carter and Burdges say that once the psychological hurdles are cleared and a person decides to go on record, the potential legal hurdle is even harder to leap.

Colby Bruno is the chief legal counsel for the Victim Rights Law Center in Boston. The most difficult part of her job is telling a client who has found the courage to come forward that her options for legal remedy have expired.

“This is the most complex area of the law,” said Bruno. “Every state has different rules for when the statute of limitations stops, starts and pauses, both for criminal and civil actions. Where you live, where he lives, where the attack occurred, when it occurred, all those variables can have an effect.”

So what options are left to a victim who wants a perpetrator held accountable? Get it on record with an attorney, Bruno said. Or go public. Speaking out is a potentially perilous path. Each step potentially opens a person to ridicule. But some women do it because they say they want to protect other women from the same fate. Others do it to validate their experience. Multiple victims speaking en masse is not unusual, Bruno said.

“If I’m the sole person who comes out against this person, I have nothing,” Bruno said. “But if there are two others and we stand together, I say in my mind there’s no way people won’t believe us.”

Yet, in the Cosby case, disbelief persists.

“I’m sure these women have given consideration to the backlash and the naysayers,” said Gibson-Carter. “But they are going forward and owning it because they could not own the moment when they were victimized.”

The Cosby case is a story with multiple sides, Gibson-Carter said. And even if no formal judgment is ever rendered, each side must be weighed.

“Consider the possibility that a victim is telling the truth while allowing for the fact that a person is innocent until proven guilty,” she said.