A New York venue has axed Bill Cosby’s scheduled performance this weekend as the veteran entertainer was engulfed by more sex abuse claims.

The Tarrytown Music Hall, north of New York City, announced the cancellation in an e-mail to ticket holders.

Some of Cosby’s shows in other states have been postponed after women have come forward claiming the 77-year-old comic sexually assaulted them. Cosby has denied the allegations.

Cosby had two sold-out engagements in Tarrytown tomorrow. Late last week, the promoter said people who did not want to attend could get refunds and nearly half of the audience had reportedly requested one. Tarrytown said that Cosby had agreed to cancel in consultation with the shows’ promoter.

For weeks, women have publicly shared stories of alleged sexual abuse by Cosby with the expectation that any lawsuits they might file would be blocked due to long-expired statutes of limitations.

People who did not want to attend could get refunds

But on Tuesday a woman who claims Cosby molested her in a bedroom of the Playboy Mansion in about 1974 filed a sexual battery lawsuit, using an exemption that allows victims of childhood sexual abuse to sue decades after the incident. Judy Huth, who said she was 15 when Cosby abused her, filed the case in Los Angeles because she only recently became aware of psychological damage caused by the alleged incident.

“The reality is, with sexual violence and a lot of traumatic events, you don’t discover either the full extent or even any of the trauma immediately,” said Meg Garvin, a law professor and executive director of the National Crime Victim Law Institute.

For Huth’s lawsuit to survive, she will have to show that she discovered the alleged abuse by Cosby caused significant psychological damage within the past three years. Tweets sent from Cosby’s official Twitter account thanked a pair of celebrity supporters, Whoopi Goldberg and singer Jill Scott.

Cosby has steadfastly refused to answer questions about the sex-abuse allegations. Singer has denied some of them and said several of the women accusing Cosby had been discredited, but none of the claims has been tested in court.

Only one woman has filed suit − Andrea Constand, who sued in 2005 and settled for an undisclosed amount before the case went to trial. Cosby has never been charged in connection with any of the allegations.

Numerous dates on Cosby’s tour have been cancelled, a North Carolina school removed the entertainer from an advisory board and another stopped awarding an online scholarship in his name.

Cosby also resigned from his Philadelphia alma mater Temple University’s board of trustees on Monday, saying he “wanted to do what would be in the best interests of the university and its students”.