BILL COSBY, one of the most highly-paid entertainers in the US, arrived at a Manhattan court yesterday to accuse his alleged daughter, Ms Autumn Jackson (22), of trying to extort
Cosby, whose only son was shot dead last January, has refused to take a blood test to prove or disprove his paternity of Ms Jackson. She refuses to take a lie-detector test to confirm she genuinely believes she is his daughter.
Members of the jury were asked a series of questions to prove they were able to distinguish the actor from his TV alter ego, Dr Cliff Huxtable, to most viewers an honest hero incapable of doing wrong.
The defence case rests not on whether Cosby is really Ms Jackson's father, but on whether she believes he is. Her lawyers claim she does and argue she was not extorting money but "negotiating her rights as a daughter".
The actor admits to having had an affair with Autumn's mother around the time the girl was born, but disputes paternity. Another man's name is on the birth certificate. Nevertheless, Cosby has paid much of her college tuition, bought her a car and, three years ago, established a fund from which Autumn's mother would be paid
Ms Jackson is accused of black-mailing the actor, who has been married for 30 years, and threatening to talk to a tabloid newspaper about their relationship unless he paid her a total of
On January 16th this year - by coincidence the same day his son, Ennis (27), was shot dead on a Californian freeway in an unrelated incident - Ms Jackson sent Cosby an envelope enclosing an unsigned copy of an agreement with the Globe saying she would receive payment for her story. She also included a note stating: "I need monies and I need monies now." She was arrested two days later.
The defence, anxious not to antagonise the jury by baiting a grieving father, will argue that Ms Jackson was brought up to believe she was Cosby's daughter. Mr Robert M. Baum, Ms Jackson's legal-aid lawyer, said yesterday that if his client believed she was the child of such a rich and famous man the jury could well feel "she had very valuable rights - literary, legal or moral - that she was settling in good faith".
The prosecution will focus on her refusal to take a lie-detector test for the Globe. This, they say, shows that far from being involved in negotiation, her plans were to extort as much money as possible.
If found guilty, she faces up to five years in prison and a