Pair Denies Guilt in Cosby Extortion Case

A 22-year-old woman charged with trying to extort up to $40 million from comedian Bill Cosby pleaded not guilty Thursday at her arraignment, and her lawyer said he will seek to show she is Cosby’s daughter when the case goes to trial.

“I think the evidence at trial will prove she is Bill Cosby’s daughter,” said Robert Baum, the lawyer for Autumn Jackson.

“I deny the charges that have been brought against me,” Jackson said in a brief statement outside federal court in Manhattan. “I’d like to send my condolences to the Cosby family after Ennis’ death.”

Cosby’s 27-year-old son, Ennis, was shot to death in Los Angeles on Jan. 16 as he was changing a flat tire on a darkened road above Bel-Air. No arrests have been made in the murder investigation.

Federal prosecutors charged that an extortion scheme began in November or December when Jackson called a lawyer for Cosby and said she was out of money. The lawyer sent her about $3,000.

Prosecutors said the scheme escalated in mid-December. They charged that Jackson demanded as much as $40 million not to tell a tabloid newspaper she was Cosby’s daughter.

When Jackson and Jose Medina, an occupational therapist’s assistant and researcher, traveled from Los Angeles to Cosby’s lawyer’s offices in Manhattan, they were arrested by the FBI after accepting checks totaling $24 million.

Medina, 51, also told the court on Thursday that he was not guilty.

Medina’s lawyer, Neil Checkman, said his client merely was trying to help Jackson obtain a “slot in school so she could study film at UCLA” and did not know whether Jackson was involved in conspiracy and extortion.

Baum said Jackson had met Cosby in the past and alleged that it could be proved to the jury that his client is the comedian’s daughter by showing that Cosby acted over the years in a manner consistent with someone who believed he was her parent.

Cosby, in a recent interview with CBS news anchor Dan Rather, acknowledged that he had a “rendezvous” with Jackson’s mother, who later told him that he was the father of her daughter.

Cosby said that his name does not appear on the birth certificate, that he had not spoken with Jackson’s mother during her pregnancy or delivery and that it was not until another meeting months later that she made the claim.

When questioned by Rather about being Autumn Jackson’s father, Cosby, according to a transcript released by CBS, replied: “There is a possibility.”