Constand, a former basketball coach at Cosby’s Temple University alma mater, is the only woman whose accusations of sexual assault have resulted in criminal charges against Cosby.
Advertisement
A United States judge has ordered actor and comedian Bill Cosby to stand trial on charges of sexual assault.
Although she was not in the court room, prosecutors were able to use “hear-say” evidence in describing Constand’s statement to police…made 11 years ago.
Bill Cosby’s attorney went on the attack after the beleaguered comedian had a rough day at the Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown, Pennsylvania, today. It means a trial is likely to take place on a date yet to be set.
A judge ruled in February that the case against Cosby, charged in a 12-year-old sexual assault, could proceed.
Attorneys for Cosby insist their client is not guilty.
That includes a lawsuit from Judy Huth, who alleges the comedian forced her to perform a sex act on him in a bedroom of the Playboy Mansion around 1974 when she was 15.
Cosby also told police the pills were over-the-counter Benadryl that he takes to help him sleep.
Constand says Cosby sexually assaulted her in 2004. Most of the cases are too old to be prosecuted, but the entertainer faces civil lawsuits from his accusers.
Cosby also admitted to Troiani that he had had sexual relationships with at least two 19-year-olds and that a modeling agency would send “five or six” models to his studio each week while he was working on his sitcom. “I felt nauseous”, she said, according to the police report.
Early Tuesday, the back-and-forth in the courtroom grew heated, with McMonagle attempting to raise questions about the contents of the statement and Constand’s credibility, and prosecutors objecting to his line of questioning. It could be a year or more before Cosby goes to trial.
Bill Cosby arrives at the Montgomery County Courthouse for a preliminary hearing, May 24, 2016, in Norristown, Pennsylvania. He chose to respond by suing the accusers for defamation, including Andrea Constand and her lawyers for tricking him and not complying with the mutual agreement on the first instance of the case.
Former Montgomery County detective Katherine Hart read Constand’s statement aloud and answered questions regarding the edits Constand made to her statement upon reviewing a typed copy.
Q: She says that just days after … she told you that she did not drink, you told her to come over to [your townhouse] and served her amaretto. “I have never once had a case where the prosecution has relied, in a sexual abuse case, on exclusively hearsay evidence in a hearing”.
After her complaint, Cosby offered to pay her way through graduate school, according to a statement he gave Cheltenham police in 2005 that was introduced at the hearing.
Prosecutors reopened the criminal case a year ago after dozens of women raised similar claims, and Cosby’s deposition in Constand’s lawsuit surfaced.
Advertisement
Judge Elizabeth McHugh found that prosecutors presented enough evidence to support allegations that he drugged and assaulted a woman in 2004.
