Bill Cosby, who has been accused of sexual assault by dozens of women and spent more than two years in prison before his conviction was overturned in 2021, has defaulted on his mortgage for a townhouse in New York City’s Upper East Side.
Cosby, 87, bought the house with his wife, Camille, in 1980, property records show. It is unclear who resides in the four-story property now, but their late son, Ennis Cosby, lived there before he was shot and killed in 1997, according to a New York Times story.
The couple took out a $4.2 million mortgage on the 5,000-square-foot Manhattan house in 2010, four years after Cosby settled a civil sexual assault lawsuit for $3.4 million.
A former Temple employee, Andrea Constand, filed that lawsuit in which she accused “America’s Dad” of drugging and assaulting her in his Cheltenham mansion in 2004. Cosby was criminally charged by the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office in 2015 based on the allegations. A jury found him guilty in 2018, after a trial in which other accusers testified. Cosby was sentenced to 3 to 10 years in state prison.
Cosby denied all allegations.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned his conviction in 2021 based on a decade-old promise by a previous Montgomery County district attorney that Cosby would never be charged, leading Cosby to provide incriminating testimony in a civil lawsuit. The court did not comment on the trial’s evidence. He walked out of prison at age 83, wearing a Central High School T-shirt, sparking outrage by other alumni.
He continues to battle civil lawsuits by women who accuse him of sexual assault. And now Cosby can add foreclosure to his legal troubles.
CitiMortgage filed the foreclosure lawsuit Monday in the New York County Supreme Court, warning the Cosbys: “You are in danger of losing your home.”
The mortgage-granting entity of financial giant Citibank said in court records that the couple owes $3.68 million of the mortgage’s principle plus interest.
Jennifer Brennan, an attorney with the Roach and Lin law firm, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of CitiMortgage, did not respond to a request for comment.
The Cosbys don’t have an attorney listed on the docket. Andrew Wyatt, a longtime attorney for Cosby, declined to comment.
Cosby owns a larger house 10 blocks away from the foreclosed property, according to PincusCo, a media company that reports on NYC real estate transactions and had reported on the lawsuit first. He has taken more than $17 million worth of loans against that property since 2010.
