PHILADELPHIA - The attorney hired to defend comedian Bill Cosby from allegations he fondled a female acquaintance questioned Friday why the woman took a year to come forward.
The woman was formerly an employee at Temple University, Cosby's beloved alma mater. She told police this month in her native Canada that Cosby fondled her at his suburban Philadelphia mansion in January 2004.
"It's pointedly bizarre because it's been a year since it allegedly happened, and she is coming forward," said Cosby's attorney, Walter M. Phillips Jr. "It will be vigorously defended."
He said he expected investigators would need some time before deciding whether to file charges and that he did not think authorities in Pennsylvania had interviewed the accuser yet.
Durham Area Regional Police in Ontario had referred the case to police in Cheltenham Township, the Philadelphia suburb where Cosby has a home. Neither Cheltenham Police Chief John Norris nor prosecutors in Montgomery County returned repeated messages left Friday.
The accuser's telephone number in Ontario was not listed and she could not be reached for comment.
The woman, now in her mid-30s, left Temple in April and returned to Canada. She previously played basketball at the University of Arizona.
Arizona women's basketball coach Joan Bonvicini said the woman left to pursue a new career after failing to find work coaching a team.
"She's always been honest and upstanding. ... I've never known her to lie," Bonvicini said Friday of her former player.
Cosby, 67, best-known as a warm, wisecracking TV dad, has provoked debate this past year with blunt remarks on personal responsibility aimed at the black community.
In 1997, his son Ennis was murdered while changing a tire in Los Angeles. Later that year, the long-married Cosby acknowledged a brief affair with the mother of Autumn Jackson, a young woman convicted of extorting him. Cosby testified that he had quietly sent $100,000 to Jackson and her mother over the years, even though he doubted he had fathered her.
Cosby is synonymous with Temple. He frequently attends university events and is the school's de facto commencement speaker.
Thornhill Cosby, 83, of Philadelphia, a Cosby uncle, also questioned the woman's motives.
"I can't understand this woman waiting a year to make these remarks against him," he said. "Bill is a fine fellow. He's helped a lot of people. We've known he's a millionaire, and everybody out there is trying to get some of his money."
Cosby postponed a town hall meeting in Cleveland on Thursday and has postponed three upcoming appearances in Florida, his publicist David Brokaw said. Brokaw would not say whether the postponements had anything to do with the recent allegations.
