COSBY JURY DRILLS DOWN IN SECOND FULL DAY OF DELIBERATIONS.

Verdict awaited in trial for sex assault

NORRISTOWN, PA. • The jury in the Bill Cosby sexual assault case, weighing charges that could send him to prison for the rest of his life, drilled down Tuesday on what the TV star said happened inside his suburban Philadelphia home and how he characterized his relationship with the accuser.

Jurors reviewed more than a dozen passages from a deposition Cosby gave more than a decade ago, hearing excerpts on a wide range of topics, from Cosby’s first meeting with Andrea Constand to the night in 2004 she says he drugged and violated her.

They were still deliberating as of press time.

As he described reaching into Constand’s pants, Cosby testified, “I go into the area that is somewhere between permission and rejection. I am not stopped.”

Cosby is charged with drugging and molesting the 44-year-old Toronto woman. His lawyer has said they were lovers sharing a consensual sexual encounter.

The 79-year-old entertainer did not take the stand, but prosecutors used his deposition testimony — given in 2005 and 2006 as part of Constand’s civil suit against him — as evidence.

As they pored over Cosby’s words, the jurors appeared to struggle with some language in one of the charges against him: “without her knowledge.” The jury asked about the phrasing Tuesday morning, but Judge Steven O’Neill said he could not define it for them.

The jury is considering three counts of felony aggravated indecent assault.

Outside the courthouse, Constand’s lawyers blasted the Cosby team Tuesday for releasing a statement from a woman who had been blocked from testifying.

Cosby’s spokesman, Andrew Wyatt, read the statement from longtime Temple University official Marguerite Jackson, who said Constand told her of a plan to falsely accuse a “high-profile person” of sexual assault so she could sue and get money.

Jackson said Constand told her she had been drugged and molested. She said the Temple basketball director immediately recanted, then said she could make a false accusation, win a lawsuit and use the money to go to school and open a business.

The jury was focused on what Cosby said about the pills he gave to Constand before their encounter.

Cosby later told police the pills were Benadryl. Constand — an athletic, 6-foottall college basketball staffer — said they made her dazed and groggy, and unable to say no or fight back.

The defence insisted Constand was a willing partner.