Cosby is set to appear in court May 24 to determine whether the criminal sexual assault case filed by Constand will go to trial.
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The actor’s lawyers then tried to delay the preliminary hearing, but their motion was rejected by Supreme Court officials on Monday (23May16), reports Deadline.com. His lawyers contend that Cosby was promised he would not be prosecuted when he settled the Constand case.
In Camille Cosby’s deposition, she’s also asked about the highly publicized affair Bill Cosby admitted to having with Shawn Thompson, whose daughter Autumn Jackson claimed Bill Cosby was her father and was at the center of a 1997 extortion case.
Prosecutors must convince a judge that there is enough evidence to order Cosby to stand trial.
Cosby is accused of molesting the former Temple University athletic department employee at his suburban Philadelphia mansion in 2004. The DA at the time declined to press charges.
Cosby also opened up about giving Quaaludes to then 19-year-old Therese Serignese after he met her back in 1976.
When Troiana asked Cosby if the other teenager in question used the lotion to “rub your penis and make you ejaculate”, he responded with a simple, “Bingo”.
During the preliminary hearing, it’s up to the prosecution to prove there is a preponderance of evidence that Cosby committed a crime. He said in his deposition he gave her and other girls quaaludes and would have sex with some of them.
Prosecutors in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, are expected to outline some of the evidence against Cosby, 78, who had been one of America’s best-loved comedians before being hit by a wave of sex assault allegations.
Cosby is facing three felony charges of aggravated indecent assault. Cosby called himself a “friend and mentor” and said that he and Constand had “engaged in consensual sexual activities”. If convicted, he could face up to 10 years behind bars.
Cosby’s response was pretty disturbing: “I don’t know”, he said.
According to a criminal complaint filed in December, she went to Cosby’s home one evening in early 2004. He is being held on $1 million bail.
But the first evidentiary hearing was delayed for months as the Pennsylvania Superior Court weighed Cosby’s attempt to appeal O’Neill’s ruling.
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The hearing was not the face-to-face confrontation between accuser and accused that some had anticipated: Constand was not in the courtroom, and the judge ruled that she would not have to testify and that prosecutors could instead have her statements to police read into the record.
