I WAS FROZEN: COSBY ACCUSER.
NORRISTOWN, PENN. • Bill Cosby’s chief accuser took the stand at his sexual assault trial Tuesday to tell her story publicly for the first time, saying the comedian violated her after giving her three blue pills that left her paralyzed and helpless.
“In my head, I was trying to get my hands to move or my legs to move, but I was frozen,” Andrea Constand, a 44-year-old Toronto resident, said. “I wasn’t able to fight in any way.”
She added: “I wanted it to stop.”
Cosby, 79, is charged with drugging and sexually abusing Constand at his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004. The TV star could get 10 years in prison if convicted.
His lawyers tried to poke holes in Constand’s story, citing differences between her courtroom testimony and the accounts she gave to police and in a lawsuit in 2005. The defence has argued the two had a romantic relationship, that Constand wasn’t incapacitated and the sexual encounter was consensual.
Constand was calm as she testified, looking at the jury as she began describing the assault.
She said Cosby gave her pills he claimed were a natural remedy to ease her stress about a looming career change.
“They’re your friends. They’ll take the edge off,” she quoted him as saying.
She said she started feeling woozy after about 20 minutes, with blurred vision, slurred words and legs that felt like rubber. Cosby then penetrated her with his hand and also placed her hand on his penis and moved it back and forth, she said.
She said she was unable to push him away or tell him to stop. “I felt really humiliated and I felt really confused.”
Cosby leaned in to listen, whispered to his lawyer and, at times, shook his head.
Constand met Cosby while working for the women’s basketball team at Temple, Cosby’s alma mater. She said they became friends. He invited her to dine with him at his home.
Cosby was “somebody I trusted,” Constand said. “A mentor.”
The defence said phone records show Constand called Cosby 53 times after she says he assaulted her. Constand told the jury the calls mostly involved the women’s basketball team.
Constand also said she went to a performance of Cosby’s later that year with her family in Canada after Cosby arranged to drop off tickets. She felt “terrible” about it, she said.
“It was a very big burden on me, but ... I did not have the courage at the time to tell my family,” she said. “So I just went along with them.”
Constand’s cross-examination continues Wednesday.