JURY SELECTION BEGINS IN COSBY ASSAULT TRIAL
TESTIMONY OF ACCUSER CRITICAL IN CRIMINAL TRIAL NOW UNDERWAY
Andrea Constand, the Canadian woman with the sword flower on her arm, is the central figure in one of the most highly anticipated trials in recent history, a potential reckoning for Bill Cosby, an entertainment legend whose legacy as “America’s Dad” lies in tatters.
The trial that started Monday with jury selection will determine whether Cosby drugged and sexually assaulted Constand, the only woman to have her allegations against Cosby heard in a criminal court.
Cosby, now 79, is likely to be mute at his trial. He has professed his innocence all along but said he doesn’t want to testify. In a case hampered by a lack of physical evidence or a police report filed at the time of the alleged crime, it all rests on Constand, now 44, a woman Cosby met and befriended when she was a staffer for the women’s basketball squad at Temple University.
The criminal charge — aggravated indecent assault — harks back to a late night and early morning in 2004 at Cosby’s estate in Elkins Park, Penn., 24 kilometres from the courthouse where testimony in his trial is set to begin June 5 before a sequestered jury.
Constand was a superstar on the high school basketball team in Scarborough, a Toronto suburb, a six-foot scoring machine who averaged an astonishing 30 points per game. She landed a scholarship at the University of Arizona and went on to play professionally in Italy. Eventually, she moved to Philadelphia, taking a job as an operations manager for the women’s team at Temple, where she worked from late 2001 to early 2004. Cosby was for years the public face of the university, a member of the board of trustees and a frequent presence on campus.
After leaving Temple, Constand started studying massage therapy at a school in Toronto. But her nightmares were getting in the way, she told police.
Her mother described her nighttime torment as “posttraumatic stress,” Constand told police. The cause, she said, “was the incident with Mr. Cosby.”
Statements made by Cosby and Constand will be pored over during the trial. But the basic outlines of their accounts are remarkably similar. Cosby, 36 years her senior, became a mentor. They exchanged gifts. Sometime in January or February of 2004, during a dinner at his estate, Cosby gave Constand some pills and they had sexual contact. He says they were Benadryl; Constand’s attorneys have suggested it was something much stronger.
Constand contacted two Philadelphia-area lawyers, Bebe Kivitz and Dolores Troiani. Constand and Troiani were unable to persuade the district attorney, Bruce Castor, to bring criminal charges.
Thwarted in the criminal arena, Constand and Troiani filed a civil lawsuit.
The lawsuit got publicity, and Troiani’s phone began to ring. Beth Ferrier, a former model, called to talk about the 1980s, when she says Cosby spiked her coffee and she woke up in a parked car with her bra undone. Donna Motsinger rang Troiani’s office to discuss the night in the early 1970s when she says Cosby drugged her in a limo and she woke up naked in her bed.
The women, 12 in all, came forward anonymously as Jane Does.
The lawsuit settled for an undisclosed amount in 2006 before any of the Jane Does could testify.
Then in October 2014 a Philadelphia Magazine reporter posted a video of the comedian Hannibal Buress telling an audience to Google “Bill Cosby rape.” Buress had made the crack before. This time, it went viral.
As more Cosby accusers came forward, everything changed. The emergence of so many accusers exerted public pressure on Cosby. But nothing they said carried the same weight as Cosby’s own words. In July 2015, the media printed details quoting Cosby’s testimony from once-sealed deposition testimony in Constand’s lawsuit. In it, Cosby admitted acquiring Qualuudes to give to women with whom he wanted to have sex. He also spoke almost boastfully about how he set a romantic mood for Constand’s visit with a fire and wine at his house.
Cosby’s defence attorneys fought to keep the deposition out of the upcoming trial — and they succeeded in blocking much of the salacious testimony about other Cosby accusers. But the testimony about Constand will be admitted.
Cosby has sought to put race front and centre. His daughter, Ensa, released a statement decrying what she called the “public lynching” of her father and saying racism played a “big role” in his scandal. Asked about her remarks on SiriusXM radio, Bill Cosby said: “I just truly believe that some of it could very well be that.”