Bill Cosby Faces Foreclosure on Upper East Side Townhouse: Lawsuit

Bill Cosby is reportedly facing foreclosure on his Lenox Hill home at 243 East 61st Street (between Second and Third avenues), court records show.

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According to Crain’s New York Business, Cosby has reportedly defaulted on a $4.2 million loan on the four-story property. The lawsuit was filed Monday in Manhattan Supreme Court by lender Citibank, through the entity Citimortgage Inc., PincusCo. reported. Bill and his wife Camille bought the house in April 1980 for $327,250 through a trust.

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The Cosbys, according to the pre-foreclosure complaint, “have defaulted under their note of $4,200,000 owing to plaintiff by failing to make the required payments when due. By virtue thereof, plaintiff herein elects to accelerate the entire principal balance of $3,680,077.21 to be immediately due.”

A 1997 New York Times article about the slaying of Cosby’s only son, Ennis, who had been shot and killed on a Los Angeles freeway that year, said that he had lived at the East 61st Street brownstone.

Cosby also owns another, larger 12,000-square foot home on East 71st Street, which he bought in 1987 for $6.2 million. In 2017, the New York Post reported that he attempted to borrow somewhere in the neighborhood of $30 million against that building; the most recent loan he was able to secure on the property, however, was $5.25 million in 2014—in addition to a $12.25 million loan from 2010.

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The actor, once known as “America’s dad,” has faced mounting financial struggles after being accused by more than 50 women of sexual assault; Cosby was convicted of sexual assault by a Pennsylvania court in 2018 over charges originating 14 years before, but that was overturned and he was released in 2021. Cosby has continued to maintain his innocence and deny the accusations.

Cosby doesn’t seem to have any attorney on file in the foreclosure lawsuit.

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