The following is an excerpt from the author’s forthcoming book, The People’s Justice: Clarence Thomas and the Constitutional Stories that Define Him, about the events surrounding the McKee v. Cosby case and Supreme Court jurisprudence.
When other women started accusing Bill Cosby of crimes, Katherine McKee’s trauma flooded back with unexpected force. What she had tried to block from her mind was now staring her in the face. She assumed her attack was an isolated incident, but now she knew she wasn’t alone.
McKee became especially enraged by how Cosby and his people retaliated against these women. Hadn’t he already taken enough from his victims? McKee knew Cosby had to be stopped, and she was confident that truth and justice were on her side. However, the time to press criminal charges had expired. McKee’s only option for justice was in the court of public opinion. In December 2014, she spoke with Nancy Dillon of the New York Daily News, and Dillon published McKee’s story on Dec. 22, 2014.
Cosby didn’t take the allegations lightly. Instead, he implemented a “scorched-earth strategy” against his accusers, and McKee was no exception. Following the release of the New York Daily News story, Cosby’s lawyer sent a letter to the paper accusing McKee of being a liar and engaging in “reckless conduct.”
The letter claimed that the newspaper had “recklessly labeled as ‘rape’ an alleged sexual encounter in the 1970’s during which … the accuser never objected, never said no, did not attempt to
