The woman formerly known as “Jena T.” who spoke out about her alleged assault at the hands of Bill Cosby has shed her anonymity.
Jennifer K. “Kaya” Thompson was one of 13 Jane Doe witnesses prepared to testify against Cosby in the 2005 sexual assault lawsuit. In November 2014, she came forward using the name “Jena T.” This week, she decided to reveal her full name and story, reports People.com.
Thompson first met Cosby in 1988, when she was a 17-year-old aspiring model who traveled from Maryland to New York City to meet with a casting agency. She told People that she was sent to meet Bill Cosby on the set of “The Cosby Show,” and that he telephoned her parents to assure them he would look out for her if she moved to the city. Cosby allegedly invited Thompson and her parents to his home for dinner and offered to help her with her career.
Thompson soon became uncomfortable with Cosby’s constant phone calls, invitations and unwelcome physical touches. In a November 2014 interview with People, she said that in the summer of 1989 she mailed Cosby a poem she’d written about him that read in part: “Receive a phone call from the Big Man/Who says he has a plan … He is a thief, a hypocrite and a whore/Who only wants more.”
According to Thompson, she met with Cosby a final time in 1989 to seek “closure.” He expressed concern about the poem she’d written, and took her to lunch with a psychiatrist friend of his. After lunch, they returned to Cosby’s home, where he allegedly pressured Thompson into performing a sex act.
“I’m sure he fixed something to drink,” she said. “He knew that I was ready to submit. The whole thing was like –- I just knew that I gave him a hand job.”
Thompson told People that she decided to release her full name this week in order to strengthen her story, and stand with more than 30 other women who have accused Cosby of drugging them, assaulting them or coercing them into sex.
“It’s come to my understanding that there’s greater credibility for my testimony with a full name and an image,” she said.
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(Photo Source: People.com)
