Cosby Accusers To NBC: Legal System “Threw Us Under The Bus”

Eight of Bill Cosby’s sexual assault accusers are speaking out, telling NBC News that they felt thrown “under the bus” by a legal system that released the comedian from prison last week.

“I was so stunned I couldn’t even think straight,” accuser Victoria Valentino says in the exclusive group interview with NBC News’ Kate Snow, airing today on NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt.

“As the day went on, and I had to continue talking about it to the media, the anger just kept growing and growing and growing,” Valentino continues. “And by the end of the day, I was just livid, just livid.”

Watch a segment of the interview below.

Cosby was released from prison on June 30 when his rape conviction was overturned by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court on a procedural matter. The former The Cosby Show star had been found guilty by a jury in his second trial for the 2004 rape of former Temple University employee Andrea Constand. Cosby, 83, has maintained that they engaged in consensual relations, but Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice David Wecht took issue with the trial’s prosecutorial conduct.

Valentino tells NBC that her current anger is especially targeted toward “the legal system, because they threw us really under the bus.”

Another accuser, Lise-Lotte Lublin, says despite the recent ruling, she doesn’t regret going public with her accusations. “I don’t feel like I have been, you know, set back to day one because this man has spent two years and nine months in jail,” she says. “This man has lost his entire reputation. He’s lost every bit of credibility that he’s ever had.”

Adds accuser Barbara Bowman, “It was worth it for me, because my story needed to be told.”

NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt airs at 6:30 p.m. ET/5:30 p.m. CT on NBC.

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