Bill Cosby's youngest daughter says dad 'loves and respects' women

Bill Cosby’s youngest daughter has spoken out in defense of the embattled comedian ahead of his looming sexual assault trial, insisting that the 79-year-old has been wrongly maligned.
Evin Cosby, 40, writes in an opinion piece for the National Newspaper Publishers Association published Wednesday and posted on Bill Cosby’s official Facebook page that her father ‘is not abusive, violent or a rapist.’
The single mother-of-two says the beleaguered star of The Cosby Show ‘loves and respects women.’
The publication of Evin’s opinion piece coincided with the release of Bill Cosby’s first interview in two years, which also appeared on National Newspaper Publishers Association’s Newswire, revealing that the actor has lost his sight but still hopes to perform on stage again.
In her lengthy statement, Evin acknowledges that her 79-year-old father had affairs in the course of his decades-long career in show business, but says he and her mother Camille ‘have worked through it and moved on.’
Bill Cosby is charged with drugging and molesting Andrea Constand, a former Temple University employee, in 2004. He has pleaded not guilty and remains free on $1million bail.
Dozens of other women have also made similar accusations against Cosby, who has vehemently maintained his innocence.
Jury selection in Cosby’s high-profile case is set to get underway May 22 in Pittsburgh, but the trial will be held across the state in suburban Philadelphia, with opening statements to start June 5.
Evin Cosby, the youngest of Bill and Camille’s four surviving children, writes that the accusations are ‘harsh and hurtful’ and have been ‘carelessly repeated as truth.’
In her nearly 900-word piece, Evin hits at what she calls ‘the public persecution’ of her father and ‘the cruelty of the media.’