Bill Cosby in Danger of Foreclosure at UES Townhouse

Disgraced acting icon Bill Cosby is facing a lawsuit for allegedly defaulting on a loan backing his townhouse in Lenox Hill.

Missouri-based CitiMortgage filed a lawsuit in Manhattan Supreme Court, claiming Cosby and his wife defaulted on a $4.2 million loan taken out on 243 East 61st Street on the Upper East Side, Crain’s reported. The Cosbys owe a principal balance of $3.7 million, according to the lawsuit, while also racking up hundreds of thousands in interest and fees.

The lawsuit was first reported by PincusCo.

The Cosbys purchased the four-story, 5,000-square-foot townhouse in the 1980s for $327,000, according to PincusCo, using it as a second home. It’s unclear if Bill ever lived in the home, as Cosby’s late son, Ennis, was said to live at the property in a New York Times eulogy.

Features of the property, including the number of bedrooms and bathrooms in the home, were not available on prominent listing sites, such as Zillow, Redfin and Realtor.com.

Cosby owns another home in Lenox Hill, 10 blocks north of the one in danger of being foreclosed upon. He purchased the 12,000-square-foot East 71st Street townhouse in 1987 for $6.2 million.

Cosby’s real estate holdings also include an estate in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, which is where the actor fled to when his sexual assault conviction was overturned in 2021, Fox Business reported. He and his wife paid $225,000 for the property in 1983, moving in a year before The Cosby Show launched him into further fame.

The man once known as “America’s Dad” served three years of a 10-year prison sentence for sexual assault before the conviction was overturned. More than 50 women have accused the 87-year-old of sexual assault or misconduct, allegations Cosby has consistently denied.

In 2022, Cosby was found civilly liable for the sexual assault of a 16-year-old. He has not played a role other than himself in film or television since 2000.

— Holden Walter-Warner