Accuser says Cosby gave her pills
‘I was weak. I was limp, and I just could not fight him off,’ Constand says
NORRISTOWN, PA.— Bill Cosby’s chief accuser took the witness stand Friday at his sexual assault retrial, declaring to a second jury that he knocked her out her with three blue pills and then sexually assaulted her at his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004.
“I was weak. I was limp, and I just could not fight him off,” said Andrea Constand, from Toronto, once again confronting the 80-year-old comedian in court after his first trial ended with a hung jury.
Her harrowing account of sexual molestation was remarkably similar to the one she gave at last year’s trial, and jurors watched intently and scribbled notes as she described how Cosby — the good-guy celebrity she viewed as a mentor and friend — had betrayed her trust.
Constand, who worked as a women’s basketball administrator at Temple University, his alma mater, said Cosby offered her pills and a sip of wine after she said she was “stressed” about telling the Temple coach of her plans to leave to study massage therapy in her native Canada. He called the pills “your friends” and told her they would “help take the edge off.”
Instead, Constand said, the pills made her black out. She awoke to find the actor known as “America’s Dad” penetrating her with his fingers, touching her breast and putting her hand on his penis.
She said she wanted Cosby to stop but couldn’t say anything. She tried moving her arms and legs but couldn’t.
Constand said she awoke be- tween 4 and 5 a.m. to find her bra up around her neck and her pants half-unzipped. She said Cosby stopped her as she went to leave: “All he said was there’s a muffin and tea on the table and then, ‘All right,’ and then I left.”
Afterward, Constand said, “I was really humiliated. I was in shock. And I was really confused.”
Cosby has said he gave Constand the cold medicine Benadryl and that she consented to a sexual encounter. She was expected to face intense cross-examination by a defence team intent on portraying her as a “con artist” who framed him for money.
Cosby lawyer Tom Mesereau told jurors in an opening statement on Tuesday that Constand was a pauper who stiffed roommates on bills, racked up big credit-card debt and once ran a Ponzi scheme until she “hit the jackpot” in 2006, when Cosby paid her $3.4 million to settle the civil lawsuit Constand filed after the district attorney at the time dropped the case.
On the stand, Constand told jurors she has nothing to gain financially now by wanting Cosby locked up.
“Ms. Constand, why are you here?” prosecutor Kristen Feden asked. “For justice,” Constand said. Constand testified that Cosby had made previous sexual advances, but she wasn’t concerned about him. As a physically fit former professional basketball player, she was confident she could handle him.
Constand’s allegation is the only one among dozens against Cosby that has led to criminal charges. If convicted, the former TV-star faces up to 10 years in prison on each of three related aggravated indecent assault charges.
A jury deadlocked after last year’s trial, unable to reach a verdict after more than 52 hours of deliberations over six days.
For this trial, prosecutors had the strategic advantage of putting Constand on the witness stand after a parade of other accusers who told jurors that Cosby had used the same tactics on them: preying on women who saw him as a mentor.
The defence has called the other accusers irrelevant, urging jurors to focus only on the charges that Cosby is facing.
The defence plans to call Jackson, a longtime Temple official, as a witness and says she will testify that Constand mused about framing a celebrity before she lodged sexual abuse allegations against Cosby in 2005.
Jackson said Constand once commented about setting up a “high-profile person” and filing suit.
Cross-examination will resume Monday.