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Bill Cosby offers to reimburse tickets for his New York stand up show after University of Massachusetts, Netflix and NBC all cut ties with 77-year-old comedian
- Bill Cosby is scheduled to perform twice on Dec 6 in Tarrytown, NY
- His team will refund tickets ranging in price from $49 to $125
- Comes after 17 women accused 77-year-old of raping and drugging them
- Other theaters, NBC, Netflix and UMass have cut ties with Cosby
Bill Cosby's management has offered refunds for tickets to his New York show next week.
It comes in the wake of allegations that the revered comedian has drugged and sexually abused at least 16 women.
The 77-year-old still plans to perform his two scheduled shows at the Tarrytown Music Hall in Tarrytown, upstate New York.
But despite initially claiming the venue could not afford to refund tickets, a spokesman for Cosby has now revealed reimbursements will be possible.
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Refunds available: Bill Cosby's team has confirmed they will refund tickets to his New York show next week
'Mr. Cosby's management is now allowing for refunds for any patron's (sic) that do not wish to attend the show. Please let me know if I may cancel and refund your order,' the Music Hall box office told ticket holders in an email on Friday, according to Gothamist.
A number of other theaters have cancelled Cosby's listing, leaving him with 30 shows until spring 2015.
Netflix and NBC have pulled the entertainer's projects, and the University of Massachusetts-Amherst has cut ties with their star alumnus by asking him to step down as an honorary co-chairman of their $300 million fundraising campaign.
Cosby received a master's degree and a doctorate in education from the university.
He and his wife donated several hundred thousand dollars to the university, with reports suggesting the figure to be about $500,000.
Dropped: The University of Massachusetts Amherst has confirmed it cut ties with 1976 graduate Bill Cosby in the wake of his ever-growing sex scandal
Flashback: Cosby shakes hands with University of Massachusetts Chancellor Randolph W. Bromery (left) after receiving his Doctor of Education degree in 1977
Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley sent a letter to the university urging it to cut ties with Cosby.
Coakley says while Cosby hadn't been criminally charged his association sends the wrong message when the state is focused on the prevention of campus sexual assault.
'Although Mr. Cosby has not been criminally charged nor convicted for these actions ... I believe the volume and disturbing nature of these allegations has reached a point where Mr Cosby should no longer have a formal role at UMass, nor be involved in its fundraising efforts, unless or until Mr Cosby is able to satisfactorily respond to these allegations,' Coakley wrote.
Cosby's lawyer has called the allegations 'unsubstantiated' and 'discredited'.
On Wednesday it was revealed that Cosby testified under oath in 2005 that he gave the National Enquirer an exclusive interview about looming sexual-assault accusations by a Canadian woman against him in exchange for the tabloid spiking a second accuser's story.
Excerpts of Cosby's deposition from a civil lawsuit filed by Andrea Constand quote Cosby as saying he feared the public would believe her sexual-assault accusations if the Enquirer published similar claims by Beth Ferrier.
Both women accused Cosby of drugging and molesting them.
'Did you ever think that if Beth Ferrier's story was printed in the National Enquirer, that that would make the public believe that maybe Andrea was also telling the truth?' Cosby was asked.
'Exactly,' Cosby replied, according to court motions initially filed under seal and made available from archived federal court records.
Cosby, in the deposition, said he had a contract with the Enquirer.
'I would give them an exclusive story, my words,' Cosby said in the Sept. 29, 2005, deposition. In return, 'they would not print the story of — print Beth's story.'
Role model no more: Flanked by Boston College President Reverend J. Donald Monan (right) and UMass President William M. Bulger, actor Bill Cosby reacts to the graduates at Boston College commencement exercises in 2011. UMass cut all ties with Cosby this week
The release of the documents comes after Cosby this month was shown on an Associated Press video trying to persuade the news cooperative not to use his response when asked this month about sexual-abuse allegations.
'I would appreciate if it was scuttled,' Cosby said in a videotaped exchange with the AP on Nov. 6.
Cosby said in 2005 he had been given a draft of Ferrier's interview with the Enquirer and was told she had passed its lie-detector test. He said he also was given an advance look at his exclusive, titled 'My Story,' which warned that he would defend against anyone trying to 'exploit' him.
Constand later sued Cosby and the Enquirer, alleging defamation. The claims were consolidated with her sexual-assault lawsuit against Cosby and were settled.
A representative for American Media, Inc., which owns the National Enquirer, said in an emailed statement Wednesday that the Enquirer was 'unflinching' in its coverage of the allegations against Cosby.
'We continue to remain aggressive in our reporting today and stand by the integrity of our coverage of this story which we have taken the lead on for more than a decade,' the representative said.
'We continue to remain aggressive in our reporting today and stand by the integrity of our coverage of this story which we have taken the lead on for more than a decade,' the representative said.
Cosby had said at his deposition that Constand and her mother asked only for an apology in early phone calls about the issue in January 2005, and he said they received one.
'Andrea's mother said, 'That's all I wanted, Bill,'' Cosby testified.
Constand's lawyers argued in their defamation suit: 'Requesting only an apology is not the action of an extortionist or someone who wants to 'exploit' a celebrity.'
They said that Cosby later called back and offered to pay for Constand's 'education.'
Constand had met Cosby through her job with the women's basketball team at Temple University in Philadelphia, and she said he sexually assaulted her at his nearby home in 2004.
She quit the job and moved home that year, and she first filed a report with Ontario police on Jan. 13, 2005, and filed a federal civil suit that March.
After prosecutors near Philadelphia decided not to file criminal charges, several other women came forward to support Constand's claims, including Ferrier.
Ferrier has gone public about what she called her brief affair with Cosby when she was a model in 1984.
She said that he once drugged her coffee during an encounter in Denver and that she woke up hours later in the backseat of her car with her clothes disheveled.
The Enquirer in 2005 withheld her story and instead published Cosby's account, in which he said, 'Sometimes you try to help people and it backfires on you and then they try to take advantage of you.'
In the legal deposition, taken at a Philadelphia hotel, Constand's lawyer asked Cosby if he tried in the Enquirer article 'to make the public believe that Andrea was not telling the truth?'
'Yes,' Cosby replied.
Constand's civil lawsuit grew to include nine women willing to testify about allegations of sexual assaults involving Cosby. Some came forward after a suburban Philadelphia prosecutor declined to file criminal charges over Constand's police complaint.
A comedian this year referenced the accusations anew in a performance, prompting some of the suit's Jane Doe witnesses to reveal their names and other women to raise new accusations.
Cosby has refused to discuss allegations raised in recent weeks by numerous women.
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