Johansson files for divorce

Husband calls it ‘pre-emptive strike’ over custody

Scarlett Johansson’s husband was “shocked” at the star’s divorce filing Tuesday and sees the move as a “pre-emptive strike” in a battle over custody of the couple’s toddler daughter, his lawyer said.

Johansson filed for divorce from Romain Dauriac in a New York City court Tuesday, saying the marriage was “irretrievably broken.” The move follows a January announcement that the couple split last summer after less than two years of marriage.

Johansson is asking for joint custody of their daughter, Rose, but also wants the child to live with her.

Dauriac’s lawyer, Hal Mayerson, said Wednesday that he and Dauriac were taken aback by the request because he has been the “primary parent” for Rose while Johansson has been involved with her career. Dauriac plans to petition the court to take the child to live with him in his native France, Mayerson said, adding Johansson will have “access to her daughter any time she wants to come to Paris.”

“Mr. Dauriac is tired of having to run his life and his child’s life based on Ms. Johansson’s shooting schedule,” Mayerson said.

The divorce filing notes that the couple signed a prenuptial agreement in September 2014, but Mayerson said the pact does not address custody or financial issues regarding their daughter.

Dauriac is a former journalist who now works as a curator of art shows in New York, Mayerson said.

Johansson’s representatives and lawyers didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

This was Johansson’s second marriage. She was previously married to actor Ryan Reynolds from 2008 to 2011.

PHILADELPHIA — The next battle in the criminal case against Bill Cosby will be whether prosecutors can use his lurid deposition testimony about giving pills and alcohol to a string of women before sex — material that may be disallowed at his trial since the judge ruled most of the women themselves can’t testify.

Judge Steven O’Neill must resolve the seeming conflict between two key pretrial rulings he made in recent months: One lets the deposition in, while the other excludes most of the accusers Cosby discusses.

The two sides will slug it out in briefs being filed in the coming weeks. The case is set for trial June 5 in suburban Philadelphia.

Cosby, 79, is accused of drugging and molesting former Temple University employee Andrea Constand at his home in 2004. The TV star whose reputation as America’s Dad has been destroyed by a barrage of sexual assault allegations could get 10 years in prison if convicted. He has said the sexual contact was consensual.

The comedian gave the damaging testimony more than a decade ago as part of a lawsuit filed against him by Constand, who later settled for an undisclosed sum.

Some veteran trial lawyers doubt prosecutors can get in any of his testimony about other women, since that would amount to a backdoor way to bring in evidence the judge has blocked.

“It should all be excluded,” said Alan Tauber, a defence attorney who faced a similar issue in a Philadelphia priest-abuse trial. Otherwise, Tauber said, the ruling barring several other women from taking the stand would be rendered “entirely an academic gesture, with no meaning.”

If the material is excluded, the jury won’t hear Cosby admit giving quaaludes to a 19-year-old he met in a hotel gift shop before having sex with her; describe giving three drinks to a teen actress at his New York townhouse during a supposed acting lesson before moving to the couch where, she says, he sought oral sex; or deny knowing a Las Vegas masseuse or a Sausalito, Calif., waitress who say they were drugged and attacked.

“I doubt if any of that comes in,” said David Rudovsky, a criminal lawyer and University of Pennsylvania law professor.

Prosecutors had hoped to call 13 other accusers to try to show Cosby hadapatternofdruggingandmolesting women that spanned 50 years.

In a victory for Cosby that could prove even bigger at trial, O’Neill ruled last month that the jury can hear about only the most recent of those allegations, involving a woman who worked for Cosby’s agent at the William Morris Agency. She said Cosby drugged and sexually assaulted her during a lunch meeting in 1996.

Cosby was not asked about her in the deposition because she had not yet come forward.

However, the judge could still allow Cosby’s more general testimony about the use of quaaludes. In the deposition, Cosby said he obtained about seven prescriptions of the powerful sedative from his doctor in the 1970s.