Milk celebs for money, court hears

Bill Cosby’s star defence witness testified that the woman who has accused him of sexual assault once told her how easy it would be to fabricate an accusation of sexual assault against a celebrity to make money.

Marguerite Jackson, an academic advisor at Temple University, Cosby’s alma mater, said the accuser, Andrea Constand, made the remark while they were on a road trip by Temple’s women’s basketball team in Rhode Island.

Constand was once director of operations for the team.

“She had said it didn’t happen,” Jackson told the Montgomery Country court.

Constand on Monday in court denied ever knowing Jackson, rooming with her or ever speaking to her.

Cosby, best known as the star of the ’80s TV hit The Cosby Show, is facing a retrial in a Pennsylvania court on charges of drugging and assaulting Constand at his home near Philadelphia in 2004. The jury in the first trial last year failed to reach a verdict.

Constand is one of about 50 women who have accused him of assaults dating back decades. Hers is the only case recent enough to be the subject of criminal prosecution. Cosby, 80, has said the sexual contact with Constand was consensual and he has denied the other women’s accounts.

He could face 10 years in prison if convicted.

Cosby paid Constand $3.38 million (R40 million) to settle a civil lawsuit she filed after Pennsylvania prosecutors in 2005 initially declined to charge Cosby for the alleged assault.