Stuart Damon, best known for his role as Dr. Alan Quartermaine on “General Hospital,” died Tuesday. He was 84.

“Stuart Damon played beloved patriarch Alan Quartermaine for 30 years,” Frank Valentini, “General Hospital” executive producer, said in a statement to USA TODAY. “He was a great actor and even greater man. His legacy lives on through ‘GH’ and all the lives he touched and all those who loved him. He will be missed.”

Damon’s family told ABC News 7 the actor had been “struggling with renal failure for the last several years.”

The actor landed the “General Hospital” role of Dr. Alan Quartermaine, part of the rich, dysfunctional and haughty Quartermaine family, in 1977. He was nominated for seven Daytime Emmys for his decades-long portrayal. In 1999, Damon finally won for best supporting actor for his depiction of Dr. Quartermaine’s addiction to Hydrocodone.

From 1999 to 2001, Damon reprised his Dr. Quartermaine role for the spinoff series “Port Charles.” He appeared regularly on “General Hospital” until his character’s death, from heart failure after a massive heart attack during February sweeps, in 2007. Dr. Quartermaine appeared sporadically on the daytime drama until 2013, sometimes in dreams and even as a ghost. “General Hospital” actors paid tribute to Damon on social media.

“I am so grateful to have had this wonderful man in my life. I am very sad today #StuartDamon #GH,” tweeted Genie Francis, who plays Laura Spencer on the soap opera.

Amber Tamblyn, who played Damon’s adopted daughter on “General Hospital” for seven years, tweeted she was “broken hearted” to hear the news.

“He was the most kind, wonderful, loving, supportive person. He always made me laugh and made me feel safe on set. I love you, Stewy. Rest well now, my friend,” Tamblyn wrote.

“General Hospital” actress Nancy Lee Grahnsaid Damon was “a lovely, funny, talented Prince of a man. He truly was Charming.”

“What a pleasure it was to work with his iconic self,” Grahn wrote on Twitter.

ABC

Eden McCoy, Josslyn John Jacks on the ABC soap opera, tweeted that Damon “makes me proud and thankful to be even a small part of this show.”

Born in New York City, February 5, 1937, Damon began his career on Broadway. He shot to prominence portraying the prince opposite Lesley Ann Warren in the 1965 CBS musical production of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s “Cinderella.”

Damon in worked on London’s West End stage also starring as a secret agent on the 1968-69 TV series “The Champions.” He appeared on British shows including “The Saint,” “Steptoe and Son” and “The New Avengers.”

Read more at usatoday.com

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Three teenagers, including two 15-year-olds, were hurt in a shooting Wednesday night in Little Village on the West Side.

One 15-year-old boy and an 18-year-old man were found about 8:20 p.m. in the 3700 block of West Cermak Road with gunshot wounds, Chicago fire officials said. The younger boy was taken to Stroger Hospital in serious to critical condition, fire officials said.

The older teen was taken to the same hospital in fair to serious condition, fire officials said.

The other 15-year-old boy was found shot about a block away in the 2200 block of South Millard Avenue, fire officials said. He was transported to the same hospital in fair to serious condition.

Police have not yet released information on the shooting.

This is a developing story. Check back for details.

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The White Sox got one big piece back Wednesday and lost two.

One step forward, two steps back.

Somehow, some way, they’ve managed to stay in first place for 56 days this season and every day since May 7 despite a list of injuries too long to list here.

“Just had a run of bad luck,” said right-hander Michael Kopech, who returned to the bullpen for the first time since May 26 after getting sidelined by a hamstring strain. “I really hope we can turn that corner and get everybody healthy and back to being the team we are. We’ve done well with a lot of guys down but we’re capable of a lot more. Really hoping everyone gets on the field healthy and we don’t have any more setbacks.”

There were two more setbacks before the Sox hosted the Twins Wednesday, both from the bullpen. Right-hander Evan Marshall, who exited Tuesday’s game against the Twins with soreness in his forearm, landed on the injured list with a strained right flexor pronator. That wasn’t as surprising an announcement as left-hander Aaron Bummer going on the IL with a right hamstring strain. Lefty Jace Fry was recalled from Triple-A Charlotte.

“Just have to appreciate the depth that the organization has provided us,” manager Tony La Russa said. “We still keep competing. If someone is missing for a bit, we’ve got somebody to come in and help.”

Marshall, who was struggling with a 5.60 ERA after two good seasons as a reliable, late-inning righty, to be out longer than Bummer, who sustained his injury before Tuesday’s game. If there’s a silver lining, it appears to be minor and it gives Bummer 10 days to rest his arm. That’s the only good thing about Kopech being out for a month — it seemingly keeps more bullets in his holster for late in the season.

“It does kind of help us manage that together rather than me pulling in one direction and them pulling in another,” said Kopech, whose innings were going to be watched anyway after he opted out of the 2020 season. “Maybe from here we can ride it out like a regular season and not think about it too much, but like I said it’s out of my hands.”

La Russa said Kopech would slide back into his role of one or two-inning relief guy but was probably good for one inning “against the middle of their lineup” Wednesday. He also made four spot starts.

Dylan Cease started Wednesday and allowed a first-inning homer to Josh Donaldson, booed lustily as the villain after a his war of words with Lucas Giolito and Ozzie Guillen escalated during the day. It was the second night in a row Donaldson homered in the first and the second in a row the Sox erased the lead, this time with homers by Brian Goodwin, Andrew Vaughn, Jose Abreu, Yasmani Grandal and rookie Gavin Sheets in his second game. The Sox, who had scored 18 runs in a row without a homer before Goodwin went deep, led 11-1 in the fifth.

Abreu is playing in pain after getting hit by a pitch below his left knee Sunday.

“If you’re asking me how he does it, I have no idea,” Kopech said. “But it’s inspiring to all of us, especially the many guys that we’ve had banged up this year, that he can seem to get hit by a Mack truck and be in the game the next day, and it happens week after week almost.

“The guy is relentless and it really drives the rest of the team. He knows that we’re a different team with him out there and so he does his best to make sure he’s on the field everyday. We respect that and look at him as a leader because of that.”

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Rahm Emanuel liked to say there are five chief executive jobs in the nation worth holding: president; governor of California or New York; and mayor of New York or Chicago.

After his successor’s recent losing streak, Emanuel might want to cross mayor of Chicago off that list.

At a time when Lori Lightfoot appears most vulnerable to a potential reelection challenge, the once all-powerful job that made Richard J. Daley a kingmaker has — or is about to — become a shadow of what it was.

Chicago’s mayor will still wear the jacket for Chicago Public Schools. But a Chicago Teachers Union with expanded bargaining rights and a 21-member elected school board — both approved by the Illinois General Assembly over Lightfoot’s strenuous objections — will make it more difficult, if not impossible, for the mayor to make the changes voters demand.

The same goes for violent crime and the Chicago Police Department. There is no more stalling the civilian oversight board recommended by the Task Force on Police Accountability that Lightfoot co-chaired.

The civilian oversight board is likely to have the final say on police policy and be empowered to take a vote of no-confidence in the police superintendent that would trigger a similar City Council vote. The only question is whether Chicago voters will approve a binding referendum giving the oversight board even more power.

Adding to the mayor’s headaches are a tidal wave of police retirements and a firefighters pension bill that, Lightfoot claims, will saddle beleaguered Chicago taxpayers with $850 million in potential costs by 2055, setting the stage for a parade of future property tax increases.

Not to mention an emboldened Council that just handed the mayor her first defeat — on a 25-24 vote — on the issue that has divided Lightfoot and Council members since her inauguration: aldermanic prerogative.

“If the trend continues, there will be a period of the mayor being scapegoated for things that they’re no longer really responsible for or in charge of. It’s gonna be very difficult for anybody that is the mayor,” given those changes, said Pat O’Connor, a former 40th Ward alderman who served as Council floor leader under Emanuel and his predecessor, Richard M. Daley.

“In Chicago, we’re used to the mayor being in charge. In a lot of cities throughout the country, the mayor really isn’t in charge. They cut ribbons. They put forth ideas. But they don’t really perform the job of control.”

O’Connor pointed to the changed dynamic in Springfield after the departure of two top Chicago Democrats who were among the city’s strongest champions: longtime House Speaker Michael Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton.

Madigan was forced out by the Commonwealth Edison bribery scandal that triggered the indictment of two close political operatives. He has not been charged and has denied wrongdoing.

“In the past, you could count on Springfield to help the mayor of Chicago. In the past, you could look at people to be supportive of trying to make the streets safer and trying to be supportive of police. And now, all of that is turned on its head,” O’Connor said.

“So a mayor coming in … is gonna have a difficult time getting their policies in place without a Council that’s willing to work with them and without a Springfield that’s willing to go the extra mile for the city, as it pretty much always did in the past.”

Democratic political consultant Peter Giangreco said it’s still early to know just how vulnerable Lightfoot really is and what impact the diminished role of the office — what one political insider called “the incredible shrinking mayor” — will have on possible mayoral challengers.

“If the mayor eventually … will have almost no say in the schools and you’ve got a potential position where they also can’t appoint the police [superintendent], the job becomes a glorified Streets and San commissioner job,” said Giangreco, who advised Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza’s 2019 mayoral campaign.

“Everything flows from public safety and education. If the mayor’s ability to affect those things continues to be restricted or taken away, it makes the job tougher to do and less appealing to run for.”

O’Connor, who spent many years as chairman of the Council’s Education Committee, argued the teachers union has been “pretty much running” CPS for a while, forcing the seven-member board appointed by the mayor to “play defense.”

That was evident when Lightfoot was forced to give away the store — at a cost of $1.5 billion over five years — to end the 11-day strike in 2019 by a union that had backed County Board President Toni Preckwinkle over Lightfoot in the mayoral election.

“It’s a tough way to run a system when, essentially, you’re trying to hold on as opposed to implement policy. But, at least you’re on the field when you’re playing defense. When you’re in the stands, it’s much harder to figure out how to impact the game,” O’Connor said of the elected, 21-member board.

Lightfoot campaigned as a staunch proponent of an elected school board, only to repeatedly block what she called an “unwieldy” bill tripling the size of the board to 21 members, with a president elected citywide.

“During the campaign, that was a very strong part of her pitch. To say, ‘Now that I’m here, I see more clearly and this is a bad idea,’ the horse was way out of the barn,” O’Connor said.

“But again, the relationship that previously existed between the mayor’s office and the state Legislature and the governor would pretty much have prevented those things from happening. And that relationship seems to be non-existent at this point.”

Lightfoot also campaigned on a promise to give a civilian oversight board the power to fire the police superintendent and also have the final say over police policy.

She hasn’t delivered on that promise, either — and blocked pending ordinances that would do what she said she would do. When she finally offered her own version of civilian oversight, it reserved those decision-making powers for the mayor.

“People felt double-crossed. Because of what the City Council and the Legislature thought of her, they’re sticking it to her,” the political observer said.

“Now, Chicago will have to live with the consequences of a weakened mayor. They have taken an important position and stripped it of its capacity to effect change.”

The mayor’s frayed relationship with the Council has been evident since her inauguration. But it came into sharp relief during the angry confrontation between Lightfoot and Ald. Jeanette Taylor (20th) last week.

Lightfoot could not contain her anger after Taylor joined Ald. Ray Lopez (15th) in a parliamentary maneuver to delay Lightfoot’s appointment of Celia Meza as corporation counsel. They did it to protest the Law Department’s treatment of Anjanette Young, the woman whose home was raided by Chicago police officers who had the wrong address.

Taylor has since likened Lightfoot to a “bully” and said she wouldn’t speak to her until she apologizes.

“Who stands up to her? This is not the first time she did this to somebody. She does this all the time, and people let her get away with it,” Taylor has told the Sun-Times.

“It’s a ‘no.’ How many times do you keep letting a bully bully you? Clearly, this is bullying.”

Since that confrontation and the 25-24 vote to strip away from Lightfoot’s pandemic relief package that portion of the mayor’s ordinance that eliminates aldermanic control over sign permits, aldermen clearly smell political blood in the water.

In a letter to the mayor, 22 aldermen demanded that she “honor and consistently follow” Council rules of procedure, citing numerous occasions when Lightfoot made parliamentary rulings contradicting those rules.

Demands for the Council to hire its own legal counsel and its own parliamentarian are also gaining steam.

All that spells potential trouble when it comes to determining how $1.9 billion in federal coronavirus relief funds will be spent. That will be wrapped into Lightfoot’s unveiling of the 2022 city budget, which the mayor has moved to September — a month early.

In Round One of the 2019 mayoral election, Lightfoot finished first in a crowded field of 14 enticed by Emanuel’s decision to call it quits.

Lightfoot had languished in the single digits until Jan. 3, 2019, when the first round of federal charges were filed against Ald. Edward Burke (14th).

Preckwinkle’s mayoral campaign acknowledged that day she had received a $10,000 campaign contribution Burke allegedly muscled from a Burger King franchise owner. The Preckwinkle campaign said she knew nothing about the alleged shakedown and returned the contribution because it exceeded legal limits.

Preckwinkle tried desperately to distance herself from Burke — returning the money she raised at his house and using her position as Cook County Democratic Party chair to strip Burke of his role as head of judicial slate-making.

It didn’t work. In Round Two, Lightfoot swept all 50 wards.

This time around, the mayoral field is almost certain to be smaller — at least in part due to those soon-to-be-diminished mayoral powers.

Among the possible challengers are: former Chicago Public Schools CEO Arne Duncan; Ald. Roderick Sawyer (6th); Ald. Brian Hopkins (2nd); City Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin; U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley, D-Ill.; CTU Vice President Stacy Davis Gates; and City Clerk Anna Valencia, now running for Illinois secretary of state.

“Mayor Lightfoot has been given the benefit of the doubt for a while because of COVID. As the city recovers, there’s gonna be a re-focusing on her ability to get public safety under control. To do the two things that people want: Keep them safe in their homes and reform the police so these shootings of particularly Black and Brown young people come to an end,” Giangreco said.

“It’s tough to pull off. This is not just a Chicago problem. … We’ll see it play out in mayor’s races all over the country. That trying to enact racial justice reforms in the face of a nationwide spike in homicides is really, really tough. It gets tougher if the structure of government ties the mayor’s hands.”

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Two of the biggest names in R&B music history — Bobby Brown and Keith Sweat — will square off in the next Verzuz battle.

Their battle, sponsored by Essence — an African American women’s lifestyle magazine — is scheduled at 7 p.m. Thursday via Instagram, the Triller app, the Fite TV app, and Essence.com.

The duo, who have hit records spanning decades, are often seen in the pantheon of the genre’s history in terms of success and influence.

Brown, a Boston native, came to prominence first as a member of the R&B group New Edition, signing lead on the 1983 song, “Candy Girl,” as well as “Jealous Girl” and “Mr. Telephone Man,” among others.

Following his exit from the group, Brown launched his solo career in 1986 with “King of Stage,” his debut album, which produced “Girlfriend,” a Billboard Hot 100 chart-topping song. Brown’s career took off with the seven-time platinum album “Don’t Be Cruel,” which consisted of five Billboard Hot R&B chart-topping singles “My Prerogative,” “Roni,” “Rock Wit’cha,” “Every Little Step,” and “Don’t Be Cruel.”

Brown’s other hits include “Humpin’ Around,” “On Our Own” from the “Ghostbusters II” soundtrack, and “Thug Lovin’ “with Ja Rule, among others.

He also frequently collaborated with Verzuz battle contestant, producer Teddy Riley, who is credited with being one of the pioneers of “New Jack Swing,” an R&B and hip-hop hybrid popularized by the aforementioned Brown, Whitney Houston, Mary J. Blige, New Edition, Bell Biv Devoe, Janet Jackson, Guy, Jodeci, and R.Kelly and Public Announcement, among many others.

SiriusXM

Sweat, a Harlem, New York, native, who has 13 solo albums, has garnered hit singles including “Make It Last Forever,” “Nobody,” “I Want Her,” “Make You Sweat,” “I’ll Give All My Love to You,” “Merry Go Round,” “Don’t Stop Your Love,” and “Twisted,” among many others.

During his first seven solo albums, Sweat, at best, went four-times platinum (“Keith Sweat”), and at worst, “Didn’t See Me Coming,” went gold.

Sweat, a 2013 Soul Train Lifetime Achievement Award winner, later found success with R&B supergroup LSG, consisting of Levert member Gerald Levert, Sweat, and New Edition member Johnny Gill, with “Levert.Sweat.Gill,” a double-platinum album. Sweat is also credited with discovering R&B groups “Silk” and “Kut Klose,” who garnered success with hit singles “Freak Me” and “I Like.”

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When Bill Cosby was convicted in 2018 of drugging and molesting a woman, Lisa Christie told her husband that she thought the comedian once known as “America’s Dad” would die in jail.

But on Wednesday, Cosby, 83, was released from prison after Pennsylvania’s highest court threw out his sexual assault conviction, leaving victims feeling shocked and discouraged.

“Some people say this … was a partial justice. No, it’s kind of erasing everything that was just done as if it didn’t happen,” Christie told the Chicago Sun-Times in a phone interview Wednesday . “… There’s been a huge injustice.”

Christie, a former Mrs. America-turned-evangelist, came forward with allegations in 2015 that Cosby flew her to Chicago and then threatened her career after she refused to sleep with him. Before that, she said she viewed Cosby as a father figure, who made her an extra on his show and took her to Jell-O commercial shoots.

“He was like a dad to me, literally. I knew him for almost two years, and he kind of replaced — my dad was always busy working, and so he kind of understood that, and he filled in the gaps there and took advantage of that,” Christie said.

Christie, 52, acknowledged that many of the other victims are still angry about what happened to them, though she has forgiven Cosby, leaving the punishment to God.

“God’s bigger,” she said.

Still, Christie, who lives in western New York, was shocked to hear Crosby was released after serving nearly three years of a three- to 10-year sentence for drugging and violating Temple University sports administrator Andrea Constand in 2004 following the court’s ruling that the prosecutor who brought the case was bound by his predecessor’s agreement not to charge Cosby.

“I hope that he had some kind of change, but so far, he won’t come forward and say anything. To me, that’s very narcissistic; no empathy for any of the victims, because if he’s truly changed in his prison time, he would have came out and said something,” Christie said.

Instead, Cosby thanked his supporters in a social media post Wednesday night hours after he flashed the V-for-victory sign to a helicopter overhead as he trudged into his suburban Philadelphia home.

“That’s very sad,” Christie said. “That’s like a slap in the face to every single victim he’s ever had.”

The former “Cosby Show” star — the first celebrity tried and convicted in the #MeToo era — had no comment as he arrived home earlier in the day and just smiled and nodded later at a news conference outside, where his lawyer, Jennifer Bonjean, said: “We are thrilled to have Mr. Cosby home.”

“He served three years of an unjust sentence, and he did it with dignity and principle,” she added.

AP

In a statement, Constand and her lawyers called the ruling disappointing, and they, like many other advocates, expressed fear that it could discourage sexual assault victims from coming forward. “We urge all victims to have their voices heard,” they added.

Cosby was arrested in 2015, when a district attorney armed with newly unsealed evidence — the comic’s damaging deposition in a lawsuit brought by Constand — filed charges against him just days before the 12-year statute of limitations was about to run out.

But the Pennsylvania Supreme Court said Wednesday that District Attorney Kevin Steele, who made the decision to arrest Cosby, was obligated to stand by his predecessor’s promise not to charge Cosby, though there was no evidence that agreement was ever put in writing.

Justice David Wecht, writing for a split court, said Cosby had relied on the previous district attorney’s decision not to charge him when the comedian gave his potentially incriminating testimony in Constand’s civil case.

The court called Cosby’s subsequent arrest “an affront to fundamental fairness, particularly when it results in a criminal prosecution that was forgone for more than a decade.” It said justice and “fair play and decency” require that the district attorney’s office stand by the decision of the previous DA.

The justices said that overturning the conviction and barring any further prosecution “is the only remedy that comports with society’s reasonable expectations of its elected prosecutors and our criminal justice system.”

Cosby was promptly set free from the state prison in suburban Montgomery County and driven home.

“What we saw today was justice, justice for all Americans,” said another Cosby attorney, Andrew Wyatt. “Mr. Cosby’s conviction being overturned is for the world and all Americans who are being treated unfairly by the judicial system and some bad officers.”

Bonjean said Cosby was “extremely happy to be home” and “looks forward to reuniting with his wife and children.” Several supporters outside yelled, “Hey, hey, hey!” — the catchphrase of Cosby’s animated Fat Albert character — which brought a smile from him.

He later tweeted an old photo of himself with his fist raised and eyes closed, with the caption: “I have never changed my stance nor my story. I have always maintained my innocence. Thank you to all my fans, supporters and friends who stood by me through this ordeal. Special thanks to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court for upholding the rules of law.”

In a statement, Steele, the district attorney, said Cosby went free “on a procedural issue that is irrelevant to the facts of the crime.” He commended Constand for coming forward and added: “My hope is that this decision will not dampen the reporting of sexual assaults by victims.”

“I am furious to hear this news,” actor Amber Tamblyn, a founder of Time’s Up, an advocacy group for sex-crime victims, said on Twitter. “I personally know women who this man drugged and raped while unconscious. Shame on the court and this decision.”

But “Cosby Show” co-star Phylicia Rashad tweeted: “FINALLY!!!! A terrible wrong is being righted — a miscarriage of justice is corrected!”

She sent out a second tweet offering her full support of sexual assault survivors.

“My post was in no way intended to be insensitive to their truth. Personally, I know from friends and family that such abuse has lifelong residual effects. My heartfelt wish is for healing,” Rashad wrote.

Four Supreme Court justices formed the majority that ruled in Cosby’s favor, while three others dissented in whole or in part.

Peter Goldberger, a suburban Philadelphia lawyer with an expertise in criminal appeals, said prosecutors could ask the Pennsylvania Supreme Court for reargument or reconsideration, but it would be a very long shot.

“I can’t imagine that with such a lengthy opinion, with a thoughtful concurring opinion and a thoughtful dissenting opinion, that you could honestly say they made a simple mistake that would change their minds if they point it out to them,” Goldberger said.

Even though Cosby was charged only with the assault on Constand, the judge at his trial allowed five other accusers to testify that they, too, were similarly victimized by Cosby in the 1980s. Prosecutors called them as witnesses to establish what they said was a pattern of behavior on Cosby’s part.

Cosby’s lawyers had argued on appeal that the use of the five additional accusers was improper. But the Pennsylvania high court did not weigh in on the question, saying it was moot, given the finding that Cosby should not have been prosecuted in the first place.

In sentencing Cosby, the trial judge had declared him a sexually violent predator who could not be safely allowed out in public and needed to report to authorities for the rest of his life.

In May, Cosby was denied parole after refusing to participate in sex offender programs behind bars. He said he would resist the treatment programs and refuse to acknowledge wrongdoing even if it meant serving the full 10 years.

The groundbreaking Black actor grew up in public housing in Philadelphia and made a fortune estimated at $400 million during his 50 years in the entertainment industry that included the TV shows “I Spy,” “The Cosby Show” and “Fat Albert,” along with comedy albums and a multitude of television commercials.

The suburban Philadelphia prosecutor who originally looked into Constand’s allegations, Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce Castor, considered the case flawed because Constand waited a year to come forward and stayed in contact with Cosby afterward. Castor declined to prosecute and instead encouraged Constand to sue for damages.

Questioned under oath as part of that lawsuit, Cosby said he used to offer quaaludes to women he wanted to have sex with. He eventually settled with Constand for $3.4 million.

Portions of the deposition later became public at the request of The Associated Press and spelled Cosby’s downfall, opening the floodgates on accusations from other women and destroying the comic’s good-guy reputation and career. More than 60 women came forward to say Cosby violated them.

The AP does not typically identify sexual assault victims without their permission, which Constand has granted.

Cosby, in the deposition, acknowledged giving quaaludes to a 19-year-old woman before having sex with her at a Las Vegas hotel in 1976. Cosby called the encounter consensual.

On Wednesday, the woman, Therese Serignese, now 64, said the court ruling “takes my breath away.”

“I just think it’s a miscarriage of justice. This is about procedure. It’s not about the truth of the women,” she said. Serignese said she took solace in the fact Cosby served nearly three years behind bars: “That’s as good as it gets in America” for sex crime victims.

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Follow Maryclaire Dale on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Maryclairedale

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Back in 2012, just as Black Ensemble Theater was moving into its brand-new home in Uptown, the theater’s founder and CEO, Jackie Taylor, gave an interview to the Reader‘s Tony Adler. “I always knew that the theater company had to be more than just a name, it had to have an asset, it had to have a foundation,” Taylor told Adler. “Owning your own space, having your own theater solidifies you in a way that nothing else can. So when I started thinking about Black Ensemble as an institution that survives my lifetime, I knew that I had to start thinking in terms of transformation and solidification of the business.”

The move toward that transformation and solidification just got a big boost this month with the announcement of a $5 million grant to BET from MacKenzie Scott, the billionaire ex-wife of Amazon honcho Jeff Bezos who has pledged to give away most of her fortune in her lifetime.

Black Ensemble wasn’t the only Chicago-based organization to receive money in the third round of grants (which totaled $2,739,000,000) from Scott. Chicago’s Cultural Treasures, an initiative focused on providing support in many areas for BIPOC-led-and-focused arts and culture organizations, received $8 million, as did Pilsen’s National Museum of Mexican Art. The University of Illinois-Chicago got a whopping $40 million (the largest grant in its history), and Kennedy-King College received $5 million. (A complete list of recipients in this round is available at Scott’s Medium page.)

Now in its 46th year of operation, Black Ensemble, like most theaters, has suffered drastic drops in revenue from the COVID-19 shutdown. So the gift comes at a most opportune time.

“We lost almost two years now of earned revenue. So the grant just came at a very very vital time in our existence,” says Taylor. “Most of the grant is going to allow us to sustain. Well, of course we’ve paid some major bills that we have had for many years and were going in a circle with because we never could get them paid off. And the rest is to be able to survive at least another year on–because ticket sales are not going to just automatically come back to where they were. So we have to plan accordingly. So even though $5 million sounds like a lot, I sure wish it was 10.” Or, as Scott wrote, “Would [these organizations] still benefit from more (more advocates, more money, more volunteers)? Yes.”

The grants from Scott came without an application process, and are not earmarked to particular programs within an organization. That perceived lack of transparency has come under some criticism in the philanthropic world. A New York Times article quoted Maribel Morey, founding executive director of the Miami Institute for the Social Sciences. “MacKenzie Scott is a private citizen, but she is playing a public role . . . Much as a judge has to explain their logic, or a senator has to answer to their constituents, a philanthropist owes it to the public to explain how and why they came to their decisions.”

Scott wrote, “Because we believe that teams with experience on the front lines of challenges will know best how to put the money to good use, we encouraged them to spend it however they choose.” She and her advisers chose “286 high-impact organizations in categories and communities that have been historically underfunded and overlooked.”

For Taylor, a major goal is to move closer to finishing the company’s long-planned second stage at the Black Ensemble Theater and Cultural Center. While they still need more funds to complete the transformation of the upstairs space, Taylor sees that second stage as an incubator, and one that is closer to being a reality, thanks to Scott’s grant.

“I’d like it to be, first of all, a place for challenging youth,” notes Taylor. “A place where young people are running it, writing for it, and doing all the things that you need to do to keep a theater running. I want it to be a place where new audiences are developed, so that we keep our main audience happy on our mainstage, and then we start developing other audiences–younger audiences, maybe audiences that are not into musicals, but will have all kinds of different theater genres going on in that theater.”

Victory Gardens announces playwrights ensemble

For most of its 47 years, Victory Gardens Theater has fostered new writing through its playwrights ensemble. But the departures of former artistic director Dennis Zacek in 2011 and in 2020 of his successor, Chay Yew, led to disruptions and bad blood, with the ensemble feeling shut out of the leadership decisions made by the theater’s board. The ensemble Zacek had put together was put on emeritus status by Yew shortly after his arrival, while the ensemble Yew had in place resigned en masse in protest of the board naming then-executive director Erica Daniels to replace Yew as “executive artistic director.” Daniels resigned shortly after the ensemble announced their departure.

But current VG artistic director Ken-Matt Martin (whose appointment was announced in March) has taken steps to avoid some of the pitfalls of the past. Last week, the company named four playwrights as the current ensemble cohort: Marisa Carr, Keelay Gipson, Isaac Gomez, and Stacey Rose.

Gomez is well known to Chicago audiences from plays such as La Ruta at Steppenwolf and The Leopard Play, or Sad Songs for Lost Boys at Steep, and is a former literary manager for Victory Gardens. The other three haven’t been as widely produced in Chicago, but they have lengthy resumes around the nation.

Carr, a native of Milwaukee whose work has been produced at Milwaukee Rep and the Guthrie in Minneapolis, among many other places, is also a cofounder and former artistic director of the Twin Cities’ Turtle Theater Collective, which focuses on contemporary work by Native artists. She is Turtle Mountain Ojibwe from the Turtle clan. In an interview in March, Martin expressed a desire to bring more Native and Indigenous voices into the company. When I talked to him this week, he noted that Carr “will be one of many Native artists over the coming years.”

Rose is from Charlotte, North Carolina, and like Carr, has spent time with work in development through the Goodman Theatre’s playwrights’ unit. Gipson is based in New York, and like the rest of the new ensemble, he’s received commissions, productions, and residencies from many theaters.

For Martin, a key element to bringing in the new playwrights came out of his ongoing “listening tour” with Victory Gardens artists and staff members, past and present, including emeritus members of the playwrights ensemble.

“One of the biggest things in talking to members of the original playwrights ensemble, as well as folks who were from Chay’s era, was getting a deeper understanding of the kind of lack of structure and guarantees and everything else that had previously existed,” says Martin. He and literary manager Kat Zukaitis, whom he credits as a vital part of the decision-making process for selecting the new ensemble, wanted to make sure that the playwrights had access to board meetings, “so that these artists also have a deep opportunity to feel more engaged and aware of what’s actually happening in the rooms where the decisions get made.” Martin also credits Victory Gardens resident directors Lili-Anne Brown and Jess McLeod for the input and advocacy they’ve provided.

The new ensemble will also play a role in the selection of Victory Gardens’s acclaimed Ignition festival of new work, which will probably return sometime in the 2022 season.

Says Martin, “From them, there’s no sense of ‘We’re competition’ or anything like that, because they have their guaranteed slots. They’re gonna get produced, at least one world premiere, and they’re gonna get an Ignition slot, right? And so it’s beautiful because there’s a sense of community at play,” adding, “It just makes it a more involved process, which means artists feel like they’re not just on the outside of decisions being passed down to them, but they’re involved in the conversations leading up to them.”

The current cohort will also be involved in selecting those who follow them. The current terms for the ensemble expire in 2024. Martin explains, “The reason for that, to be fully transparent, is that I wanted it to be concurrent with my own contract term. So that if and when, hopefully that is a long time from now, I decide to transition or go away or whatever that might be, they will always be transitioning with me.” Which, given the tensions that erupted in the wake of past artistic transitions, seems a prudent step.

But mostly, Martin seems excited about having four more voices to call upon as he embarks on the journey to reopen Victory Gardens after the COVID shutdown. (The next season has yet to be announced.) “Between Jess and Lil and now the four of them, that really is what is making up my larger kind of artistic base of leaders that I get to run things by. I call them all the time, they call me. We throw things at the wall with one another.” v

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SURFSIDE, Florida — Search crews going through the ruins of a Florida condo tower pulled six more bodies from the rubble Wednesday, bringing the number of confirmed dead to 18. It was the highest one-day toll since the building collapsed almost a week ago into a heap of broken concrete.

The number of residents unaccounted stands at 147.

Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava made the announcement at an evening news conference. She said two of the dead were children.

Earlier in the day, crews searching for survivors in the ruins of a collapsed Florida condo tower built a ramp that should allow the use of heavier equipment, potentially accelerating the removal of concrete that “could lead to incredibly good news events,” the state fire marshal said Wednesday.

Since the sudden collapse of the 12-story Champlain Towers South last week in Surfside, rescuers have been working to peel back layers of concrete on the pancaked building without disturbing the unstable pile of debris.

Miami-Dade Assistant Fire Chief Raide Jadallah told family members of those missing Wednesday that a ramp built onto the pile overnight allowed rescuers to use a crane on sections that were not previously accessible. He said that improves the chances of finding new pockets of space in the urgent search for survivors.

“We hope to start seeing some significant improvement in regards to the possibility of (finding) any voids that we cannot see,” Jadallah said.

In an interview with Miami television station WSVN, State Fire Marshal Jimmy Petronis described the ramp as “a Herculean effort” that would allow crews “to leverage massive equipment to remove mass pieces of concrete,” which could lead to good results.

Petronis told The Associated Press that the ramp will allow heavy equipment to get closer to areas where debris needs to be cleared. The new equipment includes a so-called nibbler, a massive machine that has a scissors-like tool at the end of a long arm to cut through concrete and rebar.

Officials have been concerned an underground parking garage could collapse under the weight of heavy equipment, so they decided to build the makeshift limestone ramp, Petronis said. He said dogs are used to check for survivors in the area where the machine works, and then the nibbler is sent in.

“So you can really make some serious rapid headway just because of the sheer hydraulic forces this thing can exert versus a human being with hand tools,” Patronis said.

The cause of the collapse is under investigation. A 2018 engineering report found that the building’s ground-floor pool deck was resting on a concrete slab that had “major structural damage” and needed extensive repairs. The report also found “abundant cracking” of concrete columns, beams and walls in the parking garage.

Just two months before the building came down, the president of its board wrote a letter to residents saying that structural problems identified in the 2018 inspection had “gotten significantly worse” and that major repairs would cost at least $15.5 million. With bids for the work still pending, the building suddenly collapsed last Thursday.

Rescuers still faced enormous obstacles as they spent a seventh day searching for survivors. The pancake collapse of the building has frustrated efforts to reach anyone who may have survived in a pocket of space.

Miami-Dade County Fire Rescue Chief Alan Cominsky said the so-called delayering process is difficult and dangerous.

“We’re working collaboratively as a group to try to attain that goal, and that’s to save someone’s life,” Cominsky said Wednesday. “It’s been tough. I just want to emphasize that. We’re still moving forward. We see the resources coming through. We’re exhausting every avenue here.”

Officials were also worried about the possibility of severe weather interfering with search efforts.

Crews have already had to deal with intermittent bad weather that caused temporary delays in the work, and they are now keeping an eye on two disorganized storm systems in the Atlantic Ocean. The National Hurricane Center said the storms have a chance of becoming tropical systems in the coming days, but it is unclear at this point whether they would pose a threat to the U.S.

Gov. Ron DeSantis said some of the resources in Surfside might have to be removed in case the storms hit any part of Florida. “‘Tis the season and you’ve got to be ready,” he said.

The possibility of severe weather prompted state officials to ask the federal government for an additional search and rescue team. Kevin Guthrie of the Florida Division of Emergency Management said the new team, which would likely come from Virginia, would be on hand if severe weather hits, allowing crews that have been working at the site for days to rotate out.

Authorities said it’s still a search-and-rescue operation, but no one has been found alive since hours after the collapse on Thursday.

President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden planned to travel to Surfside on Thursday.

“They want to thank the heroic first responders, search-and-rescue teams and everyone who’s been working tirelessly around the clock, and meet with the families” waiting for word of their loved ones, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Tuesday.

Jadallah told family members Wednesday that if they want to meet with Biden, they should respond through an RSVP form from police and fire officials.

Miami-Dade Police Director Freddy Ramirez said he hopes Biden’s visit will be a morale booster for the devastated community.

“We’ve had several challenges from weather, sorrow, pain. And I think that the president coming will bring some unity here for our community, support, like our governor, our mayor, all of us together.”

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Associated Press writers Adriana Gomez Licon in Miami and Freida Frisaro in Fort Lauderdale contributed to this report.

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Rahm Emanuel liked to say there are five chief executive jobs in the nation worth holding: president; governor of California or New York; and mayor of New York or Chicago.

After his successor’s recent losing streak, Emanuel might want to cross mayor of Chicago off that list.

At a time when Lori Lightfoot appears most vulnerable to a potential re-election challenge, the once all-powerful job that made Richard J. Daley a kingmaker has — or is about to — become a shadow of what it was.

Chicago’s mayor will still wear the jacket for Chicago Public Schools. But a Chicago Teachers Union with expanded bargaining rights and a 21-member elected school board — both approved by the Illinois General Assembly over Lightfoot’s strenuous objections — will make it more difficult, it not impossible, for the mayor to make the changes voters demand.

The same goes for violent crime and the Chicago Police Department. There is no more stalling the civilian oversight board recommended by the Task Force on Police Accountability that Lightfoot co-chaired.

The civilian oversight board is likely to have the final say on police policy and be empowered to take a vote of no-confidence in the police superintendent that would trigger a similar City Council vote. The only question is whether Chicago voters will approve a binding referendum giving the oversight board even more power.

Adding to the mayor’s headaches are a tidal wave of police retirements and a firefighters pension bill that, Lightfoot claims, will saddle beleaguered Chicago taxpayers with $850 million in potential costs by 2055, setting the stage for a parade of future property tax increases.

Not to mention an emboldened Council that just handed the mayor her first defeat — on a 25-24 vote — on the issue that has divided Lightfoot and Council members since her inauguration: aldermanic prerogative.

“If the trend continues, there will be a period of the mayor being scapegoated for things that they’re no longer really responsible for or in charge of. It’s gonna be very difficult for anybody that is the mayor,” given those changes, said Pat O’Connor, a former 40th Ward alderman who served as Council floor leader under Emanuel and his predecessor, Richard M. Daley.

“In Chicago, we’re used to the mayor being in charge. In a lot of cities throughout the country, the mayor really isn’t in charge. They cut ribbons. They put forth ideas. But they don’t really perform the job of control.”

O’Connor pointed to the changed dynamic in Springfield after the departure of two top Chicago Democrats who were among city’s strongest champions: longtime House Speaker Michael Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton.

Madigan was forced out by the Commonwealth Edison bribery scandal that triggered the indictment of two close political operatives. He has not been charged and has denied wrongdoing.

“In the past, you could count on Springfield to help the mayor of Chicago. In the past, you could look at people to be supportive of trying to make the streets safer and trying to be supportive of police. And now, all of that is turned on its head,” O’Connor said.

“So a mayor coming in … is gonna have a difficult time getting their policies in place without a Council that’s willing to work with them and without a Springfield that’s willing to go the extra mile for the city, as it pretty much always did in the past.”

Democratic political consultant Peter Giangreco said it’s still early to know just how vulnerable Lightfoot really is and what impact the diminished role of the office — what one political insider called “the incredible shrinking mayor” — will have on possible mayoral challengers.

“If the mayor eventually … will have almost no say in the schools and you’ve got a potential position where they also can’t appoint the police [superintendent], the job becomes a glorified Streets and San commissioner job,” said Giangreco, who advised Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza’s 2019 mayoral campaign.

“Everything flows from public safety and education. If the mayor’s ability to affect those things continues to be restricted or taken away, it makes the job tougher to do and less appealing to run for.”

O’Connor, who spent many years as chairman of the Council’s Education Committee, argued the teachers union has been “pretty much running” CPS for a while, forcing the seven-member board appointed by the mayor to “play defense.”

That was evident when Lightfoot was forced to give away the store — at a cost of $1.5 billion over five years — to end the 11-day strike in 2019 by a union that had backed County Board President Toni Preckwinkle over Lightfoot in the mayoral election.

“It’s a tough way to run a system when, essentially, you’re trying to hold on as opposed to implement policy. But, at least you’re on the field when you’re playing defense. When you’re in the stands, it’s much harder to figure out how to impact the game,” O’Connor said of the elected, 21-member board.

Lightfoot campaigned as a staunch proponent of an elected school board, only to repeatedly block what she called an “unwieldy” bill tripling the size of the board to 21 members, with a president elected citywide.

“During the campaign, that was a very strong part of her pitch. To say, ‘Now that I’m here, I see more clearly and this is a bad idea,’ the horse was way out of the barn,” O’Connor said.

“But again, the relationship that previously existed between the mayor’s office and the state Legislature and the governor would pretty much have prevented those things from happening. And that relationship seems to be non-existent at this point.”

Lightfoot also campaigned on a promise to give a civilian oversight board the power to fire the police superintendent and also have the final say over police policy.

She hasn’t delivered on that promise, either — and blocked pending ordinances that would do what she said she would do. When she finally offered her own version of civilian oversight, it reserved those decision-making powers for the mayor.

“People felt double-crossed. Because of what the City Council and the Legislature thought of her, they’re sticking it to her,” the political observer said.

“Now, Chicago will have to live with the consequences of a weakened mayor. They have taken an important position and stripped it of its capacity to effect change.”

The mayor’s frayed relationship with the Council has been evident since her inauguration. But it came into sharp relief during the angry confrontation between Lightfoot and Ald. Jeanette Taylor (20th) last week.

Lightfoot could not contain her anger after Taylor joined Ald. Ray Lopez (15th) in a parliamentary maneuver to delay Lightfoot’s appointment of Celia Meza as corporation counsel. They did it to protest the Law Department’s treatment of Anjanette Young, the woman whose home was raided by Chicago police officers who had the wrong address.

Taylor has since likened Lightfoot to a “bully” and said she wouldn’t speak to her until she apologizes.

“Who stands up to her? This is not the first time she did this to somebody. She does this all the time, and people let her get away with it,” Taylor has told the Sun-Times.

“It’s a ‘no.’ How many times do you keep letting a bully bully you? Clearly, this is bullying.”

Since that confrontation and the 25-24 vote to strip away from Lightfoot’s pandemic relief package that portion of the mayor’s ordinance that eliminates aldermanic control over sign permits, aldermen clearly smell political blood in the water.

In a letter to the mayor, 22 aldermen demanded that she “honor and consistently follow” Council rules of procedure, citing numerous occasions when Lightfoot made parliamentary rulings contradicting those rules.

Demands for the Council to hire its own legal counsel and its own parliamentarian are also gaining steam.

All that spells potential trouble when it comes to determining how $1.9 billion in federal coronavirus relief funds will be spent. That will be wrapped into Lightfoot’s unveiling of the 2022 city budget, which the mayor has moved to September — a month early.

In Round One of the 2019 mayoral election, Lightfoot finished first in a crowded field of 14 enticed by Emanuel’s decision to call it quits.

Lightfoot had languished in the single digits until Jan. 3, 2019, when the first round of federal charges were filed against Ald. Edward Burke (14th).

Preckwinkle’s mayoral campaign acknowledged that day she had received a $10,000 campaign contribution Burke allegedly muscled from a Burger King franchise owner. The Preckwinkle campaign said she knew nothing about the alleged shakedown and returned the contribution because it exceeded legal limits.

Preckwinkle tried desperately to distance herself from Burke — returning the money she raised at his house and using her position as Cook County Democratic Party chair to strip Burke of his role as head of judicial slate-making.

It didn’t work. In Round 2, Lightfoot swept all 50 wards.

This time around, the mayoral field is almost certain to be smaller — at least in part due to those soon-to-be-diminished mayoral powers.

Among the possible challengers are: former Chicago Public Schools CEO Arne Duncan; Ald. Roderick Sawyer (6th); Ald. Brian Hopkins (2nd); City Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin; U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.); CTU Vice President Stacy Davis Gates; and City Clerk Anna Valencia, now running for Illinois secretary of state.

“Mayor Lightfoot has been given the benefit of the doubt for a while because of COVID. As the city recovers, there’s gonna be a re-focusing on her ability to get public safety under control. To do the two things that people want: Keep them safe in their homes and reform the police so these shootings of particularly Black and Brown young people come to an end,” Giangreco said.

“It’s tough to pull off. This is not just a Chicago problem. … We’ll see it play out in mayor’s races all over the country. That trying to enact racial justice reforms in the face of a nationwide spike in homicides is really, really tough. It gets tougher if the structure of government ties the mayor’s hands.”

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PHILADELPHIA — Pennsylvania’s highest court threw out Bill Cosby’s sexual assault conviction and released him from prison Wednesday in a stunning reversal of fortune for the comedian once known as “America’s Dad,” ruling that the prosecutor who brought the case was bound by his predecessor’s agreement not to charge Cosby.

Cosby, 83, flashed the V-for-victory sign to a helicopter overhead as he trudged into his suburban Philadelphia home after serving nearly three years of a three- to 10-year sentence for drugging and violating Temple University sports administrator Andrea Constand in 2004.

The former “Cosby Show” star — the first celebrity tried and convicted in the #MeToo era — had no comment as he arrived, and just smiled and nodded later at a news conference outside, where his lawyer Jennifer Bonjean said: “We are thrilled to have Mr. Cosby home.”

“He served three years of an unjust sentence and he did it with dignity and principle,” she added.

AP

In a statement, Constand and her lawyers called the ruling disappointing, and they, like many other advocates, expressed fear that it could discourage sexual assault victims from coming forward. “We urge all victims to have their voices heard,” they added.

Cosby was arrested in 2015, when a district attorney armed with newly unsealed evidence — the comic’s damaging deposition in a lawsuit brought by Constand — filed charges against him just days before the 12-year statute of limitations was about to run out.

But the Pennsylvania Supreme Court said Wednesday that District Attorney Kevin Steele, who made the decision to arrest Cosby, was obligated to stand by his predecessor’s promise not to charge Cosby, though there was no evidence that agreement was ever put in writing.

Justice David Wecht, writing for a split court, said Cosby had relied on the previous district attorney’s decision not to charge him when the comedian gave his potentially incriminating testimony in Constand’s civil case.

The court called Cosby’s subsequent arrest “an affront to fundamental fairness, particularly when it results in a criminal prosecution that was forgone for more than a decade.” It said justice and “fair play and decency” require that the district attorney’s office stand by the decision of the previous DA.

The justices said that overturning the conviction and barring any further prosecution “is the only remedy that comports with society’s reasonable expectations of its elected prosecutors and our criminal justice system.”

Cosby was promptly set free from the state prison in suburban Montgomery County and driven home.

“What we saw today was justice, justice for all Americans,” said another Cosby attorney, Andrew Wyatt. “Mr. Cosby’s conviction being overturned is for the world and all Americans who are being treated unfairly by the judicial system and some bad officers.”

Bonjean said Cosby was “extremely happy to be home” and “looks forward to reuniting with his wife and children.” Several supporters outside yelled, “Hey, hey, hey!” — the catchphrase of Cosby’s animated Fat Albert character — which brought a smile from him.

He later tweeted an old photo of himself with his fist raised and eyes closed, with the caption: “I have never changed my stance nor my story. I have always maintained my innocence. Thank you to all my fans, supporters and friends who stood by me through this ordeal. Special thanks to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court for upholding the rules of law.”

In a statement, Steele, the district attorney, said Cosby went free “on a procedural issue that is irrelevant to the facts of the crime.” He commended Constand for coming forward and added: “My hope is that this decision will not dampen the reporting of sexual assaults by victims.”

“I am furious to hear this news,” actor Amber Tamblyn, a founder of Time’s Up, an advocacy group for sex-crime victims, said on Twitter. “I personally know women who this man drugged and raped while unconscious. Shame on the court and this decision.”

But “Cosby Show” co-star Phylicia Rashad tweeted: “FINALLY!!!! A terrible wrong is being righted — a miscarriage of justice is corrected!”

Four Supreme Court justices formed the majority that ruled in Cosby’s favor, while three others dissented in whole or in part.

Peter Goldberger, a suburban Philadelphia lawyer with an expertise in criminal appeals, said prosecutors could ask the Pennsylvania Supreme Court for reargument or reconsideration, but it would be a very long shot.

“I can’t imagine that with such a lengthy opinion, with a thoughtful concurring opinion and a thoughtful dissenting opinion, that you could honestly say they made a simple mistake that would change their minds if they point it out to them,” Goldberger said.

Even though Cosby was charged only with the assault on Constand, the judge at his trial allowed five other accusers to testify that they, too, were similarly victimized by Cosby in the 1980s. Prosecutors called them as witnesses to establish what they said was a pattern of behavior on Cosby’s part.

Cosby’s lawyers had argued on appeal that the use of the five additional accusers was improper. But the Pennsylvania high court did not weigh in on the question, saying it was moot, given the finding that Cosby should not have been prosecuted in the first place.

In sentencing Cosby, the trial judge had declared him a sexually violent predator who could not be safely allowed out in public and needed to report to authorities for the rest of his life.

In May, Cosby was denied parole after refusing to participate in sex offender programs behind bars. He said he would resist the treatment programs and refuse to acknowledge wrongdoing even if it meant serving the full 10 years.

The groundbreaking Black actor grew up in public housing in Philadelphia and made a fortune estimated at $400 million during his 50 years in the entertainment industry that included the TV shows “I Spy,” “The Cosby Show” and “Fat Albert,” along with comedy albums and a multitude of television commercials.

The suburban Philadelphia prosecutor who originally looked into Constand’s allegations, Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce Castor, considered the case flawed because Constand waited a year to come forward and stayed in contact with Cosby afterward. Castor declined to prosecute and instead encouraged Constand to sue for damages.

Questioned under oath as part of that lawsuit, Cosby said he used to offer quaaludes to women he wanted to have sex with. He eventually settled with Constand for $3.4 million.

Portions of the deposition later became public at the request of The Associated Press and spelled Cosby’s downfall, opening the floodgates on accusations from other women and destroying the comic’s good-guy reputation and career. More than 60 women came forward to say Cosby violated them.

The AP does not typically identify sexual assault victims without their permission, which Constand has granted.

Cosby, in the deposition, acknowledged giving quaaludes to a 19-year-old woman before having sex with her at a Las Vegas hotel in 1976. Cosby called the encounter consensual.

On Wednesday, the woman, Therese Serignese, now 64, said the court ruling “takes my breath away.”

“I just think it’s a miscarriage of justice. This is about procedure. It’s not about the truth of the women,” she said. Serignese said she took solace in the fact Cosby served nearly three years behind bars: “That’s as good as it gets in America” for sex crime victims.

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Follow Maryclaire Dale on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Maryclairedale

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