Bill Cosby Breaks Silence Following Rape Allegations, Says "Thank You" to Supporters like Whoopi Goldberg 
 
 Bill Cosby has finally broken his silence. The 77-year-old actor has been under fire after 20 women — including model Janice Dickinson — have come forward accusing the Cosby Show alum of sexual assault. 
 
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 Cosby tweeted thanks to two of his celebrity supporters, Whoopi Goldberg and Jill Scott, on Wednesday, Dec. 3. "Thank you @WhoopiGoldberg," he wrote, as well as, “Thank you @MissJillScott, from the Cosby Family." 
 
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 Goldberg defended the accused star during a heated discussion on The View on Nov. 20. "Perhaps the police might have believed [the allegation], or the hospital. Don’t you do a kit when you say someone has raped you?" the co-host said last month. "I hope somebody gets to the bottom of this, but I’m going to reserve my judgment because I have a lot of questions, as I said. It’s crazy, but I have a lot of questions, because I know we all have friends who have gone through this." 
 
 Scott, who received an honorary degree from Cosby earlier this year at Temple University, slammed Twitter followers and the media for ruining the comedian's "magnificent legacy" on Monday, Dec. 1. 
 
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 Dickinson, among some 20 other females, has claimed that Cosby drugged and raped her. In a tearful interview with CNN, Dickinson recalled an incident in 1982 and said: "I would like Cosby to come out and at least acknowledge that he is a pig, he is a monster, and he raped me." ||||| Three Cosby Accusers Step Forward, Demand $100 Million Fund for Alleged Victims 
 
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 Three more women are speaking out to accuse Bill Cosby of sexual assault. At a press conference on Wednesday, L.A. attorney Gloria Allred, who is representing the accusers, demanded Cosby place $100 million in a fund for his alleged victims and allow a panel of retired judges to decide whether the women's claims have merit or not.Allred – a civil-rights lawyer often in the headlines for cases involving women's rights and celebrities – proposed that Cosby should waive the statute of limitations on sexual assault claims, which would permit the women to file lawsuits against the beleaguered comedian."It could be advantageous for Mr. Cosby to give up the statute of limitations because there is a huge cloud on his reputation and legacy," she said.Cosby's attorney, Martin Singer, has blasted the wave of new accusations against Cosby. "These brand new claims about alleged decades-old events are becoming increasingly ridiculous," he said in a statement on Nov. 21.Allred told reporters that she had been approached by a number of women who claimed that Cosby either drugged or sexually assaulted them. "Many of those alleged victims contacted me to determine if they had any legal rights that they could assert against Mr. Cosby," she said. "Unfortunately, with a rare exception, I had to inform these women that it was too late for them to file a lawsuit against Mr. Cosby because of the statute of limitations.""If Mr. Cosby believes all the women are being untruthful, then this is his opportunity to prove it," she added. "What could be fairer than that?"In a statement provided by Allred, the three accusers all said they met Cosby in the '70s or '80s. Beth Ferrier, a Colorado native who first spoke to PEOPLE in 2006 when she supported a civil lawsuit filed by Andrea Constand against Cosby and told PEOPLE last month she felt "there needs to be an outcry" over Cosby's behavior, said she was an aspiring actress and model when she met Cosby through her then-agent in New York City in the mid-'80s and began an affair. After she broke up with him, he called her in Denver and invited her to one of his performances. While she was backstage, Ferrier alleges, Cosby spiked her cappuccino. "The next thing I knew, hours had passed, and I woke up in the back of my car alone. My clothes were a mess; my bra was undone. My car was in the alleyway behind the venue. I felt confused and disoriented. I had no idea what happened to me. The last memory I had was drinking Mr. Cosby's coffee."Ferrier said two security guards drove her home at Cosby's request. That same night, Ferrier said she drove to Cosby's hotel to confront him. "Mr. Cosby's explanation for what happened was that '[I] had too much to drink.' I did not believe him. I had not consumed any alcohol that night. I believe that Mr. Cosby drugged me in order to sexually assault me that night."Ferrier said she told the National Enquirer about her assault in 2005 and passed a lie detector test. However, she said, the paper didn't publish her story and instead ran an exclusive interview with Cosby, who denied all the allegations.Helen Hayes said she met Cosby in 1973 while attending Clint Eastwood's Celebrity Tennis Tournament in Pebble Beach, California. She said Cosby groped her right breast at a restaurant later that night. "I was stunned and angry because he had no right to do that and I did not know why he would behave that way," she said. "His behavior was like that of a predator.The third alleged victim, identified only by a first name, Chelan, said she met Cosby in Las Vegas in 1986 when she was 17 and working at the Hilton as a bell dispatcher at the bell desk. Chelan alleged Cosby invited her to his suite so he could introduce her to someone from the Ford modeling agency. There, she said, he gave her a blue pill he said was an antihistamine with a double shot of Amaretto.Chelan said Cosby walked her to the bedroom and began sexually assaulting her. "I could not open my eyes. I couldn't move or say anything. I felt something warm on my legs. Then I blacked out."She said she woke up hours later to Cosby clapping his hands and saying, "Daddy says wake up." He then gave her $1,500 to buy something nice for her and her grandmother, she said. ||||| Bill Cosby's biggest threat isn't the many women who are now coming forward to accuse him of sexual abuse from years ago. Instead, Bill Cosby's biggest danger is Bill Cosby. 
 
 The comedian is now facing a lawsuit from Tamara Green, who claims that she was drugged and sexually assaulted by Cosby when she tried to help him find investors for a club in the 1970s. The woman isn't suing Cosby for the abuse but rather what's been said in recent months about the incident. In a defamation lawsuit being handled by a trial attorney who once represented Paula Jones against Bill Clinton, Green asserts that her reputation was hurt by being called a liar by Cosby through his publicist and lawyer. (The full complaint is below.) 
 
 The defamation claim figures to be tough, but it's not the impossible claim that's recognized by none other than Gloria Allred. 
 
 Last week, Allred held a press conference with three Bill Cosby accusers and made a proposal that Cosby waive the statute of limitations to remove the biggest stumbling block to sexual abuse claims. Allred said that her proposal would be fair to Cosby because it would give him the opportunity to test the merits of accusations. 
 
 Cosby didn't take the bait. He's remained silent in the past week, and his attorney hasn't responded to our request for comment on that offer. 
 
 Meanwhile, Cosby's reps have fired back at the one woman, Judy Huth, who dared to try out a sexual abuse claim. Huth's attorney seems to think he's found a loophole in the statute of limitations conferred to sexual battery claims in a section of California law that allows for the recovery of damages suffered as a result of childhood sexual abuse discovered in the past three years. Huth will have to explain how it is exactly that she suffered "significant problems throughout her life" and yet only "discovered" the psychological injuries within the past three years. Cosby is demanding sanctions for the filing of the lawsuit, which pretty much explains why even an aggressive attorney such as Allred wouldn't dare sue Cosby for misbehavior that may have happened so long ago. 
 
 So if suing Cosby for sexual abuse is off the table, what's left? That's where Cosby's own actions now come into play. 
 
 One possibility is that Cosby might trip himself up by breaching any confidentiality obligations he has from prior settlements. 
 
 It's worth noting the peculiar statements by Cosby's lawyers in reaction to the many allegations. For instance, when this all went viral, one of Cosby's lawyers put out a statement that said, "Over the last several weeks, decades-old, discredited allegations against Mr. Cosby have resurfaced." A few days later, Cosby's lawyer put out a joint statement with lawyers for Andrea Constand, an accuser who settled with the comedian in 2006. It said, "The statement released by Mr. Cosby's attorney over the weekend was not intended to refer in any way to Andrea Constand." In other statements, Cosby's lawyers have emphasized "new, never-before-heard claims … brand new claims … new women who just came forward … a new uncorroborated story." 
 
 A bit of an educated guess at the PR/legal strategy of Cosby's reps: They have no problem slamming those, like Janice Dickinson, who are coming forward publicly for the first time, and they will gladly attack the "media's breakneck rush to run stories without any corroboration," but what they don't want to do is to give accusers cause to make an end-around on the statute of limitations and any settlements that might have previously been made. 
 
 In other words, if Cosby says an accuser isn't telling the truth — and yes, just because 19 women come forward with similar stories doesn't mean that #20 is being honest — he risks being sued for defamation. 
 
 Witness Green's new lawsuit against Cosby. 
 
 The complaint filed in Massachusetts federal court by attorney Joseph Cammarata says that Cosby undressed himself during the incident, took advantage of her and only stopped after Green upended a table lamp. Afterward, Cosby is said to have left two $100 bills on a coffee table. But the claim for defamation is premised on a Newsweek story that told of Green's claims and carried a comment by David Brokaw, Cosby's publicist, that according to the complaint "stated by innuendo, implied, and/or insinuated, that Defendant Cosby's drugging and sexual assault against Plaintiff Green never occurred, and therefore that Plaintiff Green lied and was a liar." 
 
 Here's the Newsweek story about Green. At the very end, a comment from Cosby's publicist appears. It says, "This is a 10-year-old, discredited accusation that proved to be nothing at the time, and is still nothing." 
 
 The lawsuit also mentions the response by Cosby lawyer Walter Phillips Jr. to a story in The Washington Post about Cosby's legacy in the wake of the scandal. The attorney commented, "Mr. Cosby does not know the name Tamara Green or Tamara Lucier [her maiden name], and the incident she describes did not happen." 
 
 Time will tell whether the comments really amount to labeling the plaintiff a liar, whether Cosby is responsible for statements made by his reps and whether the reps knew or should have known that their responses were false. But at the very least, it's a public example of why in the midst of a media frenzy over the allegations, Cosby has chosen to remain silent about claims. Awkward maybe, but there's probably some purpose. 
 
 Email: Eriq.Gardner@THR.com 
 
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– Bill Cosby has been pretty quiet since rape accusations against him started becoming big news, but this week tweets appeared on his Twitter feed for the first time since Nov. 17. "Thank you @WhoopiGoldberg," he tweeted Tuesday, following that up yesterday with "Thank you @MissJillScott, from the Cosby Family." Goldberg defended Cosby on The View back on Nov. 20, saying she planned to "reserve my judgment because I have a lot of questions." One of those questions: "Perhaps the police might have believed [the allegation], or the hospital," she said. "Don’t you do a kit when you say someone has raped you?" And Scott defended Cosby and his "magnificent legacy" on Monday, Us reports. Meanwhile, three more alleged Cosby victims came forward yesterday, People reports. Gloria Allred, who is representing them, held a press conference stating that Cosby should put $100 million in a fund for his alleged victims—and also waive the statute of limitations on sexual assault claims, which would allow the women to sue him. "It could be advantageous for Mr. Cosby to give up the statute of limitations because there is a huge cloud on his reputation and legacy," she said. "If Mr. Cosby believes all the women are being untruthful, then this is his opportunity to prove it. What could be fairer than that?" In the wake of the press conference, Cosby delayed two shows he was scheduled to do in New York Saturday, TMZ reports. (Roseanne Barr recently deleted a controversial Cosby tweet.)