Bill Cosby & Wife Face Foreclosure of Two Upper East Side Residences

Bill Cosby, the disgraced former television star that served three years in prison after being convicted of criminal sexual assault, is facing foreclosure on two Upper East Side townhouses that belong to him and his wife Camille. They’ve effectively lived in suburban Philadelphia since 2021, after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court controversially overturned Cosby’s 10-year sentence on “due process” grounds, citing a previous non-prosecution agreement.

Lenders say that Cosby has defaulted on $17.5 million in loans on a six-story townhouse at 18 E. 71st St., as well as a $4.2 million loan at a four-story residence at 243 E. 61st St. He was sued over the latter loan by Missouri-based financiers CitiMortageInc. first, in early December. The lender told the court that the Cosbys, who purchased the E. 61st St. home in 1980, specifically owed $3.7 million of the outstanding principal.

On Dec. 31, First Foundation Bank filed a complaint seeking the sale of E. 71st St., with the proceeds going towards paying off outstanding payments. It was purchased by the Cosbys in 1987.

The Cosbys reportedly had a more complicated loan arrangement on this residence, as outlined by court documents reviewed by Our Town, which began with a $12.25 million loan from CitiMortgage in 2010. The California-based First Foundation, which acquired ownership of that loan from CityMortgage in 2014, tacked on another $5.25 million loan that year. These two loans have been consolidated into the $17.5 million figure being cited in the lawsuit.

First Foundation says that the Cosbys effectively stopped all outstanding payments on the E. 71st St. townhouse by June, 1, 2024. They say that a default notice was issued on Nov. 18, which outlined “the failure” of the Cosbys to make “monthly payments,” as well as their reported failure to pay real property taxes on the townhouse. According to the lawsuit, “there are past due real property taxes in excess of $300,000 now due and owing on the premises.”

The Cosbys, represented via an LLC, were reportedly given until Dec. 12 to “cure” these defaults. First Foundation says that this date came and went without action.

Dozens of sexual assault allegations against Bill Cosby, who gained prominence due to his role as Cliff Huxtable in the 1980s sitcom known as The Cosby Show, began in 2014. The cases famously helped spark the international #MeToo movement, a legal and cultural reckoning about powerful men committing sexual abuse. Many women filed civil lawsuits against him, with Andrea Constand taking him to criminal trial over a 2004 incident in his Philadelphia home. He was arrested in connection what that case in 2015, while the trial began in 2018.

Testimony from 2005, which came to light after AP sued to obtain it in 2015, was instrumental in his conviction. Cosby admitted to covertly drugging numerous women with powerful sedatives known as Qualuudes over the years, before having sex with them while they were unconscious. A jury found him guilty of three counts of indecent sexual assault against Constand and sentenced him to 10 years in prison, although he maintains his innocence to this day.

In June of 2021, the Supreme Court ruled that the prosecutors who had secured his 2018 conviction had violated a previous “agreement” from 2005, which initially prevented his criminal prosecution over the Constand incident. This was reportedly struck in order to secure the infamous testimony on Qualuudes, which Cosby offered as part of a civil case also filed by Constand. He was shortly released from prison after the court ruling.