Bill Cosby shows scrapped in Las Vegas and Tucson amid widening assault claims

Bill Cosby's appearances at casinos in Las Vegas and Tucson, Ariz., have been cancelled amid widening allegations of sexual assault.

Officials at the Treasure Island hotel-casino on the Las Vegas Strip announced Friday that they'd mutually agreed with the comedian to cancel his upcoming performance.

Casino spokeswoman Michelle Knoll said "it wasn't a good time" for the Nov. 28 performance, adding that ticketholders will be given refunds.

The Diamond Desert Casino in Tucson also announced Friday that a show planned for Feb. 15 would not go ahead, but no reason was given.

Widening allegations

The cancellations come a day after two more woman came forward to level accusations against the 77-year-old comedian.

Carla Ferrigno, wife of The Incredible Hulk star Lou Ferrigno, told Los Angeles radio station KFI Thursday about an incident with Cosby at his house in 1967 when she was a teenager.

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​"We're playing a game of pool," said the former Playboy bunny, "and he walks over to me, grabs me, pulls me like really tight to him and kisses me on the mouth, like really, really rough."

After pushing him away, Ferrigno alleges that Cosby came at her again, and that's when she ran away and asked a friend to take her home.

"I never said a word to anyone in all these years," said Ferrigno, who considers herself "the lucky one," because she didn't drink alcohol and rejected Cosby's attempts to get her to drink.

"I don't need publicity," said Ferrigno. "I've been Lou's manager for 35-years. I want one more nail in the coffin for [Cosby] to keep him from doing this again."

A Florida woman, who also came forward Thursday, became the fourth in recent weeks to say Bill Cosby gave her pills that made her feel groggy then forced himself on her sexually.

My next memory is clearly feeling drugged, being without my clothes …- Therese Serignese

Therese Serignese, now 57 and a nurse in Boca Raton, said the television icon raped her in 1976 when she was 19 years old after a show in Las Vegas. She said she went backstage, and when the two were alone, Cosby gave her two pills and a glass of water, saying, "Take these."

"My next memory is clearly feeling drugged, being without my clothes, standing up," she said. "Bill Cosby was behind me, having sex with me."

Cosby spokesman David Brokaw did not respond to a request for comment.

• Bill Cosby won't 'dignify' decade-old allegations

Cosby's lawyer, in a statement released Sunday, criticized previous "decades-old, discredited allegations," stating that "the fact that they are being repeated does not make them true."

Cosby gets standing ovation

Cosby made no mention of the allegations Thursday during a benefit performance in the Bahamas for a women's service organization. He stuck to his routine, including stories about his childhood growing up in the projects of Philadelphia. There were few empty seats in the house, and a few people gave him an ovation when he finished his set.

Some in the audience said the allegations against Cosby remain unproven, and they added that his performance was a benefit for what they felt was a good cause.

"I think everybody is entitled to the presumption of innocence until proven guilty," said Alfred Sears, an official with the College of the Bahamas and a former attorney general.

"Tonight is for a cause, and I think that he has contributed to the cause. In terms of the other issues, the court of law and the court of public opinion will deal with those issues."

Dozens of Cosby's television and comedy colleagues have either refused to comment or not returned telephone calls from The Associated Press in recent days.

The allegations by Serignese and three others are similar:

• Barbara Bowman, an aspiring actress, said in a Nov. 13 Washington Post column that she was 17 and blacked out after Cosby drugged her, waking up to find herself in panties and a man's T-shirt with the television icon looming over her. She said she was certain she was raped.
• Joan Tarshis on Monday said she was a 19-year-old who wanted to be a comedy writer when Cosby gave her a drink and forced her to perform oral sex on him.
• Janice Dickinson on Tuesday told Entertainment Tonight that Cosby had given her red wine and a pill when they were together in a Lake Tahoe, Calif., hotel room in 1982. Cosby's lawyer, Martin Singer, said in a letter to the AP that Dickinson's charges were "false and outlandish."

In addition, Tamara Green wrote an opinion piece Wednesday for Entertainment Tonight. In 2005, Green publicly claimed that she was drugged and Cosby attempted to assault her; Cosby's lawyers have previously denied they knew each other.

'Media-driven feeding frenzy'

Cosby attorney Marty Singer issued statements Thursday denying allegations made by three other women. The women spoke to other media outlets, and their names and accounts have not been published by the AP.

Singer called one of the women "the latest example of people coming out of the woodwork with fabricated or unsubstantiated stories about my client."

"People coming out of nowhere with this sort of inane yarn is what happens in a media-driven feeding frenzy," he said of another of the women.

Serignese, whose claims Singer did not address, says after the alleged rape, she willingly stayed with Cosby in Las Vegas for some time but could not specify how long or whether the two had sex again during their time together. The two also maintained sporadic contact for years after the alleged rape.

Serignese said she filed a statement with Philadelphia police in January 2005 detailing her allegations and provided a copy of that statement to The Associated Press. The AP could not confirm Thursday that a report had been filed with the Philadelphia police department.

She had agreed to testify on behalf of a Canadian woman who alleged that she was sexually assaulted by Cosby. That case, however, was settled before it went to trial.

Comeback collapsing 

The 77-year-old television star's attempt at a career comeback has been collapsing in recent days as the abuse allegations resurface.

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In addition to the scrapped tour dates, Netflix announced earlier this week that it was postponing a comedy special it had planned with Cosby to air later this month, while NBC pulled the plug on sitcom it was developing with the star, and TV Land pulled reruns of The Cosby Show. 

High Point University in North Carolina has removed Cosby from its board of advisers, the High Point Enterprise reported.

Cosby is slated to perform 36 shows between now and next May, including an appearance scheduled for tonight in Melbourne, Fla.