TV show daughter stands by Cosby
BILL Cosby was America’s favourite dad for decades and yesterday his youngest “TV daughter” stood beside him as he faced day one of a sensational sexual assault trial.
Actress Keshia Knight Pulliam, who played the 79-yearold’s youngest daughter Rudy Huxtable on TV’s long-running The Cosby Show, said she was supporting her former costar because “it’s what you do”.
Describing the trial as “heartbreaking” Pulliam didn’t want to comment on the guilt or innocence of Cosby, with whom she worked from 1984 to 1992, and who she considered “funny and witty and smart and philanthropic and full of advice”, having known him as a child.
“I can only go based on who I’ve experienced, and at the end of the day, it’s the court’s job to find the truth of the matter,” Pulliam said.
Cosby’s wife wasn’t in court to support him on the first day of his trial on three counts of felony aggravated indecent as- sault — each punishable by up to 10 years in jail.
The now-blind performer is accused by Andrea Constand of drugging and molestation in 2004 after she approached him for career advice.
Constand was then 31 and had met Cosby professionally through her workplace Temple University, at which he served on the board of trustees.
It’s unlikely Cosby — who says his encounter with Constand was consensual — will testify in the only criminal proceedings to arise out of multiple sex allegations against him.
The former comedian has in recent years been accused by more than 50 women of sexual assault.
However, the statute of limitations has expired on most their claims and the jury in his current Pennsylvania trial will hear from just one accuser.
That woman, Kelly Johnson, testified yesterday that Cosby sexually assaulted her in 1996 after feeding her a white tablet in a hotel.
She said she woke up partially clothed.
“My dress was pulled up from the bottom, and it was pulled down from the top. My breasts were out, I felt naked,” she told the court.
Earlier, in opening remarks yesterday, prosecutors said Cosby’s previous admissions of sharing incapacitating drugs including Quaaludes with multiple women before sex, showed his predilection to similar behaviour to that which both Ms Constand and Ms Johnson allude.