ACCUSERS TESTIFY AGAINST COSBY
NORRISTOWN, Pa. — The first accuser to testify at Bill Cosby’s retrial described the comedian yesterday as “a serial rapist” as she parried with his lawyers, while a second accuser tearfully confronted the comedian over a 32-yearold assault allegation: “You remember, don’t you, Mr. Cosby?”
The courtroom dramatics prompted mistrial requests from Cosby’s lawyers — which were denied — as prosecutors began putting on a parade of women who say Cosby drugged and molested them long before he met Andrea Constand, the chief accuser in his sexual assault retrial.
Sobbing uncontrollably as she testified, Chelan Lasha told jurors she got to know Cosby through a family connection as a 17-year-old aspiring model and actress. She met the star at a Las Vegas hotel in 1986 under the pretense that he had arranged a photo shoot for her.
She said Cosby gave her a little blue pill he described as an antihistamine to help her get over a cold, along with two shots of amaretto “to help break up the cough.” The combination immobilized her and rendered her unable to speak. Cosby then assaulted her, touching her breast and rubbing himself against her leg, Lasha said.
“I could barely move. He guided me there, and he laid me in the bed. I couldn’t move any more after that. He laid next to me, and he kept touching my breast and humping my leg. I remember something warm hitting my leg,” she said.
Asked what was going through her mind, Lasha testified: “Dr. Huxtable wouldn’t do this. Why are you doing this to me? You’re supposed to help me be successful.”
Turning to Cosby, she made the remark that suggested he remembered the encounter.
Cosby, who portrayed kindly Dr. Cliff Huxtable on his hit TV comedy “The Cosby Show,” turned away and smiled slightly.
Lasha and the other accuser who has testified so far, Heidi Thomas, are among five additional accusers whom prosecutors plan to call to make the case that Cosby, once revered as “America’s Dad,” was a Hollywood predator who is only now facing a reckoning after allegedly assaulting Constand at his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004.
Cosby, 80, is charged with three counts of aggravated indecent assault, each punishable by up to 10 years in prison. His first trial last year ended in a hung jury.
As they began building their case against Cosby, prosecutors chose Thomas, a Colorado music teacher, as their first substantive witness.
In 1984, Thomas was a 24-year-old aspiring actress when her agent arranged for Cosby to give her acting tips at a session in Reno, Nev. She testified that Cosby gave her wine as they rehearsed a scene in which she portrayed a drunken woman. She said the wine knocked her out, and Cosby then forced her to perform oral sex.
She said she remembered feeling sick and wondering, “How did I get here?”
Under cross examination yesterday, Thomas rejected a defense lawyer’s insinuation that she would do anything to help Constand.
“You’ve made it very clear that you want to help Andrea Constand, haven’t you?” Kathleen Bliss asked.
“I want to see a serial rapist convicted,” Thomas replied.