Bill Cosby described his relationship with Andrea Constand to police as ‘romantic’ after she accused him of drugging and sexually assaulting her, the court heard on Tuesday.
In an extraordinary turn of phrase when asked if he had had sexual intercourse with Andrea Constand he replied, ‘Never asleep or awake’. When asked to elaborate, he said: ‘I don’t like it. I like the petting and the touching.’
On the seventh day of testimony in Cosby’s retrial at Mongtomery County Courthouse in Norristown, Pennsylvania, Assistant District Attorney M Stewart Ryan called Sergeant Richard Schaffer to the stand.
Sgt Schaffer was an investigating officer with Cheltenham Township police department who interviewed both Cosby and Constand in 2005.
It was his interview with Cosby that was the focus for the bulk of his testimony.
Bill Cosby arrives for his sexual assault retrial at Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday
The disgraced comedian’s retrial is in its seventh day. The court has heard from a number of women who have accused Cosby of sexual assault
Cosby is accused of drugging and raping Andrea Contand at his home in 2004. The last jury was found deadlocked and a judge had to declare a mistrial
Cosby arrived to the court on Tuesday morning alongside his spokesman, Andrew Wyatt, and two others
As he has every day, Cosby grasped Wyatt’s arm with his hand for stability as they walked into the courthouse
Sergeant Richard Schaffer *pictured) gave an account of a 2005 interview with Bill Cosby as he testified during the comedian’s retrial in Norristown, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday
In Cosby’s interview, conducted with three lawyers present on February 26, 2005, Cosby admitted to giving Constand pills to ‘help her relax’.
But he claimed that the pills in question were Benadryl – one whole and one broke in half – and that he himself used them to help him sleep when touring through different time zones.
He claimed that Constand didn’t complain of feeling any ill effects and cast what happened that night as a consensual petting session
Cosby said in the interview: ‘I never intended to have sexual intercourse, like naked bodies with Andrea. We were fully clothed. We were petting I enjoyed it and then I stopped and went to bed. We stopped and then we talked.’
Cosby said that he had not wanted Constand to spend the night, but that when he came down in the morning having left her sleeping on the sofa he made tea and gave her a home baked blueberry muffin.
He claimed that this was just one of three intimate sessions that he and Constand enjoyed in his home and recalled only one occasion on which Constand had stopped him and said, ‘No’.
He said that on her second visit to his Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, home: ‘We had some petting and touching of private parts. Clothing is on. We got up two steps, I lift the front of her shirt, I lift her bra.
‘This is the first time I put my lips to her breast she said, “Stop”. I put the brassiere down and stopped and we walked to the exit.’
He said that this was the only occasion on which had become aroused.
Andrea Constand, key witness in the case against actor and comedian Bill Cosby, returns to the courtroom after lunch on the sixth day of Cosby’s sexual assault retrial
Constand started her testimony against Cosby on Friday, and the cross examination continued into Monday morning
In her testimony on Friday, Constand denied ever having intimate contact with Cosby prior to the night in January 2004 that she said he drugged and molested her, but Mesereau showed her a 2005 deposition in which she testified that she told her mother she’d occasionally been affectionate toward him
Gianna Constand, left, the mother of Andrea Constand, leaves the courtroom after after testifying in Cosby’s retrial on Monday
Cosby claimed that when Constand’s mother called him, Gianna, a year after the night of the alleged assault and after Constand had told her mother that he had violated her, he was ‘startled’ and ‘did not like the tone (or) where the talk was going’.
He said: ‘Three times her mother says to me that this is a horrible thing. What you have done to my daughter, it is something that a mother – I don’t think she said nightmare – she said it’s something a mother never hopes will happen to her daughter.
‘She said this three times she also said something pertaining to not knowing how long it will take her to heal.’
Cosby added: ‘I do not trust a woman who says she does not know how long it will take her to heal.’
According to Cosby he was not open about what he gave Constand because he feared being extorted by the women – something that had happened to him before when he was extorted by a woman who claimed to be his daughter.
Speaking on his impression of Constand, Cosby told investigators that she had ‘problems connecting things’.
He claimed that her thoughts were so jumbled and disjointed that he once asked her if she had ever taken LSD, smoked cocaine or and came to the conclusion that she had some sort of learning disorder or Attention Deficit Disorder.
The relationship he had once enjoyed, he said, ‘Just became work’.
Earlier on Tuesday, O’Neill heard arguments from both sides as to what sections of Cosby’s deposition, given for the civil suit, were admissible in evidence.
There was a heavy police presence as the comedian and his spokesman walked into court on Tuesday
Constand told jurors last week that Cosby knocked her out with pills and then sexually assaulted her. Cosby, now 80, says Constand consented to a sexual encounter
Cosby paid Constand $3.38 million to settle a civil suit that Constand filed after Pennsylvania prosecutors in 2005 initially declined to charge Cosby for the alleged assault
District Attorney Kevin Steele brought criminal charges against Cosby in late 2015, days before the statute of limitations for the crimes was due to expire
Cosby was seen smiling and chatting with Wyatt as they walked into the courthouse on Tuesday morning
He ruled, as he did last time, that the jury will be able to hear sections of Cosby’s 2005 deposition in which he admitted to stockpiling Quaaludes and giving them to young women with whom he wished to have sex.
He explained his behavior by stating that at the time they were the party drug of choice.
The admission related to the 1970s rather than the time frame in which any of the alleged assaults aired in court took place.
According to the actor, offering a Quaalude was no more sinister than offering a person an alcoholic drink.
Defense lawyer Tom Mesereau and Ryan also argued over the detail of a portion of the deposition discussing a prior occasion on which Cosby was extorted by a woman claiming to be his daughter.
As the attorneys made their cases O’Neill, keen to keep the trial moving on, rebuked them both and said, ‘It astounds me that simple agreements between lawyers that could be done [have not been]. You have a list of 50 witnesses and this couldn’t have been anticipated?’
The defense may start calling witnesses as early as tomorrow
As Cosby arrived at the suburban Philadelphia courthouse Tuesday, spokeswoman Ebonee Benson told reporters that Constand and her mother’s testimony ‘seemed to be more colorful and more embellished’ than at the first trial.
Benson said that Andrea Constand helped devise a plan to make money off Cosby and her mother helped her execute it.
Benson’s statement came a day after Andrea Constand withstood a defense cross-examination that sought to expose her as a con artist who set Cosby up, leaving the witness stand at his retrial without budging from her allegation that he drugged and molested her at his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004.
Cosby’s spokesman Andrew Wyatt holds up packages of Benadryl tablets as he speak to the media during a break in Cosby’s sexual assault trial
Attorney Gloria Allred walks to speak to the media during a break in Cosby’s retrial on Tuesday
Cosby testified at a deposition related to Constand’s lawsuit against him 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
Judge Steven O’Neill ruled Tuesday that prosecutors can read the testimony into the record at Cosby’s retrial on charges he drugged and molested Andrea Constand at his suburban Philadelphia mansion in 2004
‘Did you ever fabricate a scheme to falsely accuse him for money?’ Cosby lawyer Tom Mesereau asked her.
‘No, sir,’ Constand replied.
Constand, a former Temple University women’s basketball administrator, was mostly calm and composed in more than seven hours of testimony over two days.
In her testimony on Friday, Constand denied ever having intimate contact with Cosby prior to the night in January 2004 that she said he drugged and molested her, but Mesereau showed her a 2005 deposition in which she testified that she told her mother she’d occasionally been affectionate toward him.
Constand testified that Cosby offered her pills and a sip of wine after she said she was ‘stressed’ about telling the coach of her plans to leave to study massage therapy in her native Canada.
She said she awoke to find the actor known as ‘America’s Dad’ penetrating her with his fingers, touching her breast and putting her hand on his penis.
Mesereau was trying to portray Constand to jurors as the aggressor, suggesting she pursued Cosby for a romantic relationship and preyed on the loneliness he felt after the 1997 killing of his son, Ennis, even though such activity may have been barred by her employment.
Her mother followed her on the witness stand on Monday and was more feisty, often clashing with prosecutors and bristling when they asked her if she benefited from Andrea Constand’s $3.4 million civil settlement with Cosby.
‘She didn’t buy ME a house,’ Gianna Constand snapped. ‘This isn’t about money.’
The mother testified about a phone conversation she said she had with Cosby about a year after the alleged assault on her daughter in which he described in graphic detail their sexual encounter and then apologized.
Attorneys Kathleen Bliss, left, and Tom Mesereau arrive for Cosby’s sexual assault retrial on Tuesday
Prosecutor Kevin Steele arrives for the sixth day of the sexual assault retrial for actor and comedian Bill Cosby at the Montgomery County Courthouse
Judge Steven T O’Neill arrives for the sixth day of the sexual assault retrial for actor and comedian Bill Cosby at the Montgomery County Courthouse on Monday
Gianna Constand said she was ‘very combative’ with Cosby, demanding he tell her the medication he had given her daughter and what he had done to her.
She said Cosby told her he had given Andrea Constand a prescription drug – not the cold and allergy medicine Benadryl as he has claimed – but did not provide the name of it. She said he described how he had touched Andrea Constand’s breasts and vagina and guided her hand to his penis.
‘He said to me, ‘Don’t worry, Mom, there was no penile penetration,” Gianna Constand testified.
She told jurors that Cosby said he ‘felt like a dirty old perverted man’ and, at the end of the call, conceded he was a ‘sick man.’ Her testimony prompted Cosby, sitting with his lawyers at the defense table, to open his eyes wide.
Andrea Constand told jurors last week that Cosby knocked her out with pills and then sexually assaulted her. Cosby, now 80, says Constand consented to a sexual encounter. His first trial ended with a hung jury.
Her testimony came after the jury heard five other accusers’ stories of being drugged and sexually assaulted by Cosby.
But this time round the jury knows what the previous panel did not: that Constand, 45, took a $3.4 million settlement in 2006 in the civil suit she brought against Cosby.
In his opening statement Cosby’s lawyer Tom Mesereau painted Constand as a money-grubbing ‘con artist’, a failure who would stiff roommates on credit card, telephone and utility bills, ran a Ponzi scheme at Temple University and finally ‘hit the jackpot’ by setting up Cosby.
He described her as ‘sophisticated’ in what she did and told the jury they would hear from Marguerite Margo Jackson a friend and colleague with whom Constand roomed on six basketball away games.
: Bill Cosby accuser model Janice Dickinson, 63, walks through the Montgomery County Courthouse in a break from testifying on the fourth day of the sexual assault retrial in Norristown, Pennsylvania
Cosby accuser Lise-Lotte Lublin walks through the Montgomery County Courthouse during a break from testifying on the fourth day of the sexual assault retrial
Cosby accuser Janice Baker-Kinney walks towards the courtroom to testify in the Montgomery County Courthouse for the fourth day of the sexual assault retrial on Thursday
According to Mesereau, Constand had a cynical plan to dupe a lonely old man who had never recovered from the death of his son Ennis, shot dead in a Los Angeles carjacking in 1997.
‘And she pulled it off,’ he said.
But jurors have also heard the stories of five other accusers – where last time they heard only one – as the prosecution is at pains to prove that Cosby is a ‘serial rapist’, with a pattern of offending that stretches over decades.
More than 60 women have come forward to accuse him of similar assaults.
Yesterday Janice Dickinson, 63, told how in 1982 Cosby raped her on a trip to Lake Tahoe.
After taking a small blue pill, which he told her would help menstruation cramps; she said that she ‘zonked’ out as Cosby entered her. She spoke of her loathing of the man she referred to as ‘America’s dad’, and she claimed raped her.
Her testimony followed that of Janice Baker-Kinney, 60, who admitted to willingly taking two pills at a ‘pizza party’ in 1982 at the home in which Cosby was staying when headlining at Harrah’s casino in Reno.
Baker-Kinney was a 24-year-old bartender in the casino at the time and assumed were Quaaludes only to pass out and awake naked in bed next to Cosby with a ‘sticky wetness’ between her legs.
Maud Lise Lotte Lublin, 52, related her experience in 1989 as a 23-year-old model given two shots by Cosby that rendered her woozy and dizzy.
In the midst of testifying in Bill Cosby’s sexual assault retrial, Chelan Lasha (pictured April 11) turned to address the comedian directly with an emotionally charged comment
Heidi Thomas arrives to testify against actor and comedian Bill Cosby during the retrial of Cosby’s sexual assault case on Wednesday
Bill Cosby walks towards the courtroom after a break beside accusers (L-R) Lili Bernard and Caroline Heldman in the Montgomery County Courthouse on the fourth day of his sexual assault retrial
Her last memory before passing out was of bedroom doors in his suite in the Las Vegas Hilton. She remembered him stroking her hair as she sat between his legs on the sofa but admitted she had no memory of being sexually assaulted.
Heidi Thomas, 60, spoke of what the defense referred to as a ‘four-day odyssey’ at a ranch house in Reno in 1984 when she was just 24 and of which she has only horrific ‘snapshots’ of memory – including waking to find Cosby on top of her forcing himself into her mouth.
She lost consciousness after taking just one sip of a glass of white wine he offered her as a ‘prop’ to help her relax into a cold reading of a script he gave her.
And Chelan Lasha, 49, barely made it through her emotional testimony as she told of how, when she was a 17-year-old aspiring model, Cosby invited her to his suite in the Las Vegas Hilton, gave her a small blue pill to help with her cold and assaulted her when it rendered her unable to stand or move.
She recalled him pinching her breasts, grunting and humping her leg and then feeling something warm on her leg before she blacked out.
All of the women claim to have been told that Cosby was interested in mentoring them and helping further their careers in modeling and acting respectively.
But the defense has sought to paint all these women as publicity hungry opportunists who have jumped on the bandwagon – egged on by women’s rights lawyer Gloria Allred and her daughter Lisa Bloom – in hopes of ‘extorting’ Cosby to the tune of $100 million.
That is the size of the fund Allred has called for Cosby to establish to compensate his victims.
Set against the backdrop of the #MeToo movement that has blown up since the last trial the defense had sought to argue that there was no way Cosby’s prosecution could be fair and impartial – a suggestion prosecutor Steele dismissed as ‘ridiculous.’
A heightened awareness of sexual assault could not, he pointed out, be reasonable used to give some sort of ‘free pass’ for Cosby’s alleged crimes.
FIVE BILL COSBY RAPE ACCUSERS WHO HAVE TESTIFIED AT RETRIAL
Five women who have accused Bill Cosby of sexual assault have testified at the comedian’s retrial.
It was a big increase from the first trial, where there were just two women who took the stand – plaintiff Andrea Constand and Kelly Johnson.
This time Constand was joined by Janice Baker-Kinney, Janice Dickinson, Chelan lasha, Lisa-Lotte Lublin and Heidi Thomas.
Prosecutors had been hoping to have 13 women testify alongside Constand to speak to a pattern of behavior exhibited by the defendant.
Cosby, 80, has been accused of drugging and raping over 40 women.
Janice Baker-Kinney claims that in 1982 (left) she woke up naked in bed with the comedian – and he told her to keep their encounter to themselves
JANICE BAKER-KINNEY
Kinney said she was 24 in May 1982 when she and a friend met Cosby at the casino where she worked in Reno, Nevada.
She said the three of them went back to Cosby’s apartment, where he gave her some pills.
Baker-Kinney willingly took two pills and said she began to get blurry vision while playing backgammon with Cosby.
Hours later, she claims, she woke up naked in bed with the comedian – and he told her to keep their encounter to themselves.
‘I was mortified at what had happened,’ said Kinney back in 2015 when she went public with her allegations at a press conference.
‘All this time, and for many, many years, I felt that this was my fault.’
The defense tried to deny Baker-Kinney’s admission as a witness by arguing that her story is ‘nothing like Ms. Constand’s’ because she only met Cosby once, ‘voluntarily’ took quaaludes and apologized for passing out.
Janice Dickinson (left in 1982) claims that Cosby sexually assaulted her in 1982 after giving her an unknown pill while they were in Lake Tahoe
JANICE DICKINSON
The supermodel claims that Cosby sexually assaulted her in 1982 after giving her an unknown pill.
Dickinson said in that 2014 interview that Cosby invited her to dinner to discuss a role on The Cosby Show and at one point offered her a glass of wine and a pill.
‘The next morning I woke up, and I wasn’t wearing my pajamas, and I remember before I passed out that I had been sexually assaulted by this man,’ she told Entertainment Tonight.
‘I remember waking up with my pajamas off and there was semen in between my legs.’
Dickinson said her last memory of the night was of Cosby taking off his robe and climbing on top of her, and that the next morning she remembers ‘a lot of pain.’
The supermodel claimed the incident occurred in Lake Tahoe, California in 1982.
In her memoir, Dickinson detailed some of her evening in Lake Tahoe with Cosby but told a very different story.
She said she was drinking with Cosby at dinner and after being invited back to his room told him she was tired, at which point he slammed his door in her face.
Legal claims made by Cosby and his team may be why she decided not to print her current version of the story.
She said back in 2014 that she came forward because she believes the other victims who have spoken publicly, and that it is the ‘right thing to do.’
As for what she would say to Cosby if she saw him, Dickinson did not mince words.
‘How dare you,’ she said.
‘Go f*ck yourself. How dare you take advantage of me. And I hope you rot.’
She is also currently preparing to face off with Cosby in a defamation lawsuit filed because of his response to her allegations.
Soon after that 2014 interview aired, Cosby’s attorney Marty Singer responded to requests for comment by disputing Dickinson’s claim that she was drugged and raped by his client and calling the allegation ‘an outrageous defamatory lie.’
A judge ruled in November that because he sent out that statement and a subsequent press release Singer will also face claims in the case.
‘We fail to see how justice is served by granting Singer a windfall immunity based on Cosby’s pursuit of a meritless motion,’ wrote California Second District Court of Appeals Associate Justice Laurence Rubin.
It was also ruled that Dickinson could recover all legal costs related to the appeal from Singer and Cosby.
Chelan Lasha (left in 1986) claims that Cosby attacked her when she was just 17 in 1986 when she was an aspiring model
CHELAN LASHA
Lasha said in a 2014 press conference that Cosby attacked her when she was just 17 in 1986 when she was an aspiring model.
She said her stepmother had sent pictures of her to the star and he called her at home in Las Vegas, inviting her to the Hilton Las Vegas, where he was performing and she had a job.
She then went up to Elvis Presley suite to meet him and after telling him she had a cold, he gave her a blue pill, which he said was an antihistimine, with a double shot of Amaretto.
She said: ‘He was rubbing my neck and saying that he might have to have someone come in and give me stress therapy.’
She claimed he told her to change into a Hilton bathrobe and wet her hair to see the modelling scout.
Someone did briefly come up to the room, pertaining to be from the Ford Modelling Agency -telling her to she needed to lose 10 pounds – and taking some pictures.
Then, Chelan said, Cosby walked her to the bedroom and gave her another shot of Amaretto, which he claimed would help her cold.
‘I laid down,’ she said: ‘He laid down next to me on the bed and began pinching my left nipple and humping my leg while he was grunting.
‘I could not open my eyes. I couldn’t move or say anything. I felt something warm on my legs. Then I blacked out.
‘Thirteen to sixteen hours later I woke up by hearing Mr Cosby clapping his hands and saying ‘Daddy says wake up’. He gave me $1500. He said the money was to buy something nice for me and my grandmother and he also invited me to go to the Temptations show with my grandmother.
‘My grandmother went but I did not go because I was too sick. Then he invited us to his show. My grandmother really want to go. I did not, but I went with her and heckled him. As a result, I was fired my from job.’
Lisa-Lotte Lublin (left in 1989) believes she was sexually assaulted by Cosby while passed out in his hotel in 1989
LISA-LOTTE LUBLIN
Lublin said she met Cosby in 1989 at a hotel in Las Vegas and that he asked her to perform an improvisation so that he could evaluate her acting.
According to the ex-model, she and Cosby were in the Elvis Suite at the Hilton Hotel when he offered her two drinks and proceeded to pet her hair.
A short time later she passed out, but she remembered the color of the walls in the room and a flood of bright light she said in a 2015 press conference.
She said that she believes she was sexually assaulted by Cosby while passed out in the hotel.
Prior to this, she and her mother had gone for a run with the comedian.
The defense argued that Lublin assumes she is a victim based on other media accounts but can only remember Cosby stroking her hair.
Heidi Thomas (left in 1984) said she found herself in bed next to a naked Bill Cosby who was ‘forcing himself’ in her mouth back in 1984
HEIDI THOMAS
In 1984, Heidi Thomas, nee Johnson, was a 24-year-old model from Denver, Colorado, who was dreaming of a career in acting.
Thomas was being represented by the city’s top modelling agency, JF Images, but by 1984 she was questioning whether or not she wanted to stay in the business.
Then one day in the spring of 1984, she got a call from an agent who told her that a famous entertainer was searching for young talent to mentor.
Thomas said that Annie Maloney, of JF Images, instructed her to travel to Reno, Nevada, where she was supposed to meet with Bill Cosby, who allegedly had expressed interest in becoming her acting coach.Cosby greeted Thomas at the entrance and ushered her inside, according to the woman.
The aspiring actress began by performing a monologue for Cosby, who then asked her to do a cold read of a person who was intoxicated.
Thomas said Cosby was not impressed because to his mind, she was not convincing as a drunk.
She recalled that Cosby wanted her to relax, so he poured her a glass of Chablis.
The married music teacher said that her memory of the next several hours is very hazy, but when she woke up later that night, she found herself in bed next to a naked Bill Cosby who was ‘forcing himself’ in her mouth.
According to the woman, the married comedian then got on top of her and said to her: ‘I’m your friend… your friend is gonna [ejaculate] again,’ according to the 54-year-old mother of three.
Thomas said she was confused as to what happened and eventually stormed out of the room and slammed the door behind her, but she later apologized to Cosby for being rude.
She spent three more days with Cosby and said they were all hazy and a blur.
The defense argued she has given three versions of her story.