PHILADELPHIA — Bill Cosby faces a preliminary hearing Tuesday to determine if his criminal sex-assault case in suburban Philadelphia goes to trial. Cosby has a home in Shelburne, Mass.
Prosecutors had declined to charge Cosby over Andrea Constand’s complaint in 2005, but arrested him in December after his explosive deposition in the woman’s lawsuit became public.
In the testimony given in that deposition, Cosby is grilled about giving drugs and alcohol to women before sex; making secret payments to ex-lovers; and hosting Constand at his home. The two knew each other through Temple University, where he was a trustee and she managed the women’s basketball team.
The following exchanges between Cosby and Constand lawyer Dolores Troiani took place in 2005 and 2006. They are excerpted for brevity and to delete legal squabbling and repetition.
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ON CONSTAND:
Q. When did you first develop a romantic interest in Andrea?
A. Probably the first time I saw her (at Temple’s arena).
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On the night in question:
Q: Can you tell me … what you recall of the night in which you gave the pills to Andrea?
A: Andrea came to the house. I called her. … We talked about Temple University. We talked about her position. And then I went upstairs and I got three pills. I brought them down. They are the equivalent of one and a half. The reason why I gave them and offered them to Andrea, which she took after examining them, was because she was talking about stress.
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Cosby describes a several-minute sexual encounter that followed.
Q: So, you’re not telling us that you verbally asked her for permission?
A: I didn’t say it verbally, I said. The action is my hand on her midriff, which is skin. I’m not lifting any clothing up. This is, I don’t remember fully what it is, but it’s there and I can feel. I got her skin and it’s just above the hand and it’s just above where you can go under the pants.
Q: Then what happens?
A: I don’t hear her say anything. And I don’t feel her say anything. And so I continue and I go into the area that is somewhere between permission and rejection. I am not stopped.
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Troiani asks Cosby about a phone call a year later between Cosby and Constand’s mother, Gianni Constand, who told him something was wrong with her daughter, who was also on the line.
Q: What was the thing that you did not want to talk about?
A: I didn’t want to talk about, “What did you give her?”
Q: Why?
A: Because we’re over the telephone and I’m not sending anything (the pill bottle) over the mail and I’m not giving away anything.
Q: Why didn’t you simply tell her … that you had given her daughter an over-the-counter drug called Benadryl?
A: I’m not going to argue with somebody’s mother who is accusing me of something. And then when I apologize she says to me, “That’s all I wanted to know, Bill.” … And I’m apologizing because I’m thinking this is a dirty old man with a young girl. I apologized. I said to the mother it was digital penetration.
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Q: When she sat here and cried (Constand, during her deposition), how did you feel?
A: I think Andrea is a liar and I know she’s a liar because I was there.
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ON QUAALUDES:
Cosby testified that he had gotten quaaludes from his doctor in Los Angeles in the 1970s. He said he was given seven prescriptions for the now-banned sedative, ostensibly for a sore back.
Q: Why didn’t you ever take the quaaludes?
A: Because I used them.
Q: For what?
A: The same as a person would say, “Have a drink.”
Q: You gave them to other people?
A: Yes.
Q: Did you believe at that time that it was illegal for you to dispense those drugs?
A: Yes.