Bill Cosby ‘stockpiled sedatives to drug women’
BILL Cosby admitted procuring powerful sedatives to give to young women with whom he wanted to have sex, decade-old court papers have revealed.
The US sitcom star – who has faced allegations of sexual assaults going back 40 years – admitted he had obtained seven prescriptions for Quaaludes.
Newly released documents show he was asked by lawyers in 2005: ‘Was it in your mind that you were going to use these Quaaludes for young women that you wanted to have sex with?’ He replied simply: ‘Yes.’
The court papers were part of a civil lawsuit brought by college basketball star Andrea Constand, who accused him of sexually assaulting her at his home. They remained sealed after he settled for an undisclosed sum but have now been released following a legal challenge by news agency Associated Press.
Cosby’s lawyers had objected to their publication on the grounds it would be ‘terribly embarrassing’ for him. But a judge agreed to release the papers, saying the 77-year-old’s position as a ‘public moralist’ was in stark contrast to the fact he was the subject of such serious allegations.
The actor, best known for playing cuddly father figure Dr Cliff Huxtable in hit sitcom The Cosby Show, has toured the US lecturing black Americans on the importance of family.
But in the past year 25 women have come forward accusing him of drugging and sexually assaulting them.
In the 2005 papers, Cosby admitted giving a drug to Miss Constand but claimed it was only the antihistamine Benadryl. He also admitted obtaining the prescriptions for Quaaludes, the same recreational drug that director Roman Polanski gave to 13year-old Samantha Geimer before he allegedly raped her in 1977.
Miss Constand, now 42 and forbidden from discussing the settlement, responded to news of the papers’ release on Twitter by writing: ‘Yes!’
Cosby also told the lawyers that he gave Quaaludes to a 19-year- old before having sex with her in 1978. He claimed the teenager, whom he met after he performed in Las Vegas, had given him the feeling ‘that she was above anything’. Cosby added: ‘If anything, I think she may very well have been very happy to be around the showbusiness surroundings.’
The actor, who denies the allegations, has never been charged. His defenders claim the women are trying to enrich themselves and grab the limelight. A spokesman said after the papers’ release: ‘The only reason Mr Cosby settled was because it would have been embarrassing in those days to put all those women on the stand and his family had no clue. That would have been very hurtful.’