Bail Set in Alleged Plot to Blackmail Bill Cosby

NEW YORK — A federal magistrate, ruling the defendant “shows no danger to the community,” approved bail Friday for a 22-year-old woman charged with trying to extort up to $40 million from entertainer Bill Cosby by threatening to make public her allegation that she is his illegitimate daughter.

Magistrate Andrew J. Peck set the same bail package--which includes a $250,000 personal recognizance bond co-signed by two financially responsible people--for Autumn Jackson’s alleged accomplice, Jose Medina. In addition, Medina has to pledge $50,000 in cash or property because of a prior conviction for fraud in Kansas.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Lewis J. Liman told the court that Medina was on probation when he was arrested by the FBI with Jackson in the Manhattan offices of Cosby’s lawyer last Saturday. The pair allegedly went to receive checks totaling $24 million from the entertainment icon.

Liman said that in the Kansas case, Medina, 51, represented himself as being able to obtain loans and received a $50,000 advance fee “which he pocketed for himself.” The prosecutor offered no other details.

Neil B. Checkman, Medina’s court-appointed lawyer, said his client has been on probation for seven or eight years and was reporting regularly by phone and computer to authorities in Kansas.

Checkman told the court that Medina’s employer, Dixie Dunn, an occupational therapist in Bethesda, Ohio, had pledged her home to fulfill the magistrate’s order. He said Medina met Dunn when she provided treatment after he suffered a head injury in 1983, and he eventually became her employee.

Jackson’s lawyer, Robert Baum, said that once the conditions of bail are met, she would live with her grandmother in California. Baum did not spell out in court where Jackson would get the funds for her bail, but said his client could be released as early as Monday.

As part of the bail agreement, Jackson must undergo drug testing and Medina must wear an electronic monitoring device.

According to the complaint, Cosby for the last several years has been paying some of Jackson’s educational expenses “as he has paid for numerous young people in need of tuition assistance.”

Jackson is charged with seeking to extort funds from Cosby by going to the tabloid press with her claim that she is his daughter. Cosby, through a spokesman, has denied that he is Jackson’s father.

Both defendants, as a condition of bail, are prohibited from having any contact with Cosby, any of his representatives or CBS--which also was a target of the alleged extortion attempt.

In an interview, Checkman said that Medina and Dunn were collaborating on programs that they hoped to sell to children’s television. Medina, a sometimes scriptwriter who made therapy devices, was in Los Angeles doing research for the proposed series when he met Jackson. She was a desk clerk at the Holiday Inn where he was staying, Checkman said.

Prosecutors say the scheme began in November or December when Jackson called Cosby’s lawyer and said she was “out of money.” The lawyer sent her “approximately $3,000.”

In mid-December, after Jackson left phone messages at Cosby’s home, the demands for money escalated, according to court papers. Prosecutors charged that Jackson demanded as much as $40 million not to tell a tabloid newspaper she was the comedian’s daughter.

Last week, with Medina, whom she had allegedly designated to be the “author” of her story, Jackson traveled from California to the offices of Cosby’s lawyer in Manhattan. After accepting checks totaling $24 million, both defendants were arrested.

If convicted, they each face maximum sentences of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine for conspiracy. They also each face two years in prison and a $250,000 fine for extortion.

Law enforcement authorities say the extortion case has no connection to the recent unsolved shooting death of Cosby’s son, Ennis, in Los Angeles.