In his 2006 deposition concerning the sexual assault and abuse of women, Bill Cosby admitted to numerous extramarital affairs and drugging some women in order to have sex with them.
Cosby’s lawyers insist that Cosby agreed to testify only after being promised he would never be charged over his 2004 encounter with accuser Andrea Constand. But his lawyers at the time never had an immunity agreement or put anything in writing.
The judge in the case ruled that the damaging testimony could be heard in Cosby’s pending trial.
Court records indicate that Cosby testified, “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.”
Prosecutors describe Constand as having been semiconscious after Cosby gave her three unmarked blue pills for stress the night of their encounter. The release of the deposition testimony last year prompted them to reopen her 2005 police complaint and arrest Cosby days before the statute of limitations expired. The prosecutor has vowed to try the case by June.
The only remaining issue for the judge to decide before the trial concerns the testimony of other accusers. A hearing should determine how many women will be allowed to testify in the case. Prosecutors hope to call 13 additional women who say Cosby assaulted them as far back as the 1960s. Two days of arguments on that issue are set for next week.
In his deposition testimony, Cosby also described getting seven prescriptions for quaaludes in the 1970s, which he said he kept on hand to give women he hoped to seduce, “the same as a person would say, ‘Have a drink.'”
The decision to allow Cosby’s deposition as evidence in the trial is an important victory for advocates of those sexually assaulted or abused. Anyone who is drugged and left semiconscious is in no state to consent to sex – a fact that seems clear to everyone except Bill Cosby.