Judge allows testimony of another accuser in Cosby assault case
A judge ruled Friday one additional woman who says Bill Cosby sexually assaulted her will be permitted to testify at his trial later this year on charges that he sexually assaulted a former Temple University staff member in 2004.
Legal experts have said the account of a second woman describing what she said was an act of sexual assault could strengthen the case against Cosby, 79, who has denied any misconduct.
But the judge’s decision was far from a full victory for prosecutors in Montgomery County, Pa., who sought to introduce testimony from 13 women who have accused Cosby of assaulting them. The prosecutors told Judge Steven T. O’Neill of the Court of Common Pleas the testimony of the group of women was important in showing a pattern of conduct by Cosby that bolstered the account of Andrea Constand, the former Temple employee.
O’Neill agreed to allow the testimony of the one woman, identified only as “Prior Alleged Victim Six,” in a one-page decision that briefly discussed his legal reasoning. The judge said he had considered the evidence, the legal arguments and aimed for “a careful balancing of the probative value of the other acts evidence and the prejudice to the Defendant.”
While the judge’s decision was too brief to completely understand his reasoning, the account given by the woman is similar to that given by Constand, who said she was drugged and sexually assaulted at the entertainer’s home near Philadelphia.
Two years ago, the new witness appeared at a news conference, alongside her lawyer, Gloria Allred, where she was identified only as Kacey and described working as an assistant to Cosby’s agent at the William Morris Agency in the 1990s. She and Cosby were friendly, she said, and once had dinner at his home where they both read from a script, their scene ending in a passionate kiss that made her uncomfortable. Then, she said, she went to lunch at his California hotel bungalow in 1996 where, she said, she passed out after he gave her a “large white pill,” and woke up in bed next to Cosby, who was naked beneath an open robe.
“Once Prior Victim Number Six was incapacitated, defendant sexually assaulted her,” prosecutors said in court papers last year.
The woman said at the news conference she never pressed charges because she feared retaliation.
Cosby has denied all the allegations of sexual assault and has described his encounter with Constand as consensual. His spokesman, Andrew Wyatt, declined to comment on the ruling.