Accuser was conscious, Cosby said in ’05
Interviews describe sexual overtures and ‘permission’ sought in mutual encounters.
NORRISTOWN, Pa. — An unusually specific picture of Bill Cosby’s recent approach to sex — painted in his own words — emerged in a Pennsylvania courtroom Thursday, as Cosby’s description of his actions with sexual assault accuser Andrea Constand over a period of several years was disclosed at his criminal trial.
It portrayed the entertainer as someone who — before the former Temple University basketball staffer accused him of drugging and abusing her in January 2004 — attempted to woo Constand with dinners and fireside moments at his home so he could engage in heavy petting, but not intercourse, outside his long-standing marriage.
“[I wanted it to] lead to some kind of permission or no permission or wherever you would get to where you’re going to wind up,” Cosby was cited as saying. “Permission to whatever two people will accept.”
The words came when Cosby’s responses to police officers and a questioner in a civil deposition, both from 2005, were unveiled at the trial, read out by law enforcement witnesses called by the prosecution. Together they help reveal someone whose sexual predilections, in the 21⁄2 years since many women stepped forward to accuse him of sexual assault, rarely have been described by the man at the center of the controversy.
Cosby met Constand through a Temple University contact in 2002. His reason for wanting to get to know her better was simple: “She was good-looking.”
He provided her with his number in Philadelphia, a landline that was not monitored or answered by his wife, who lived with him primarily at another of the couple’s residences, in New York. He and Constand would then, he said in the accounts, meet at his home in the wealthy Elkins Park neighborhood.
According to these accounts, Cosby had tried, with some success, to touch Constand sexually for a long time. He invited her to his home; the two would kiss and, he said, he would touch her bare midriff, her buttocks and, on one occasion, put his fingers into her vagina. He described moving slowly in that situation and waiting for a response. When he received none, he proceeded.
“I’m giving Andrea a chance to say yes or no in an area that’s right there in the question zone,” he said of that instance, which was several months before the night of the alleged attack.
He said he felt Constand had reached an orgasm — though she touched him through his pants, he did not — and had a “glow” from that encounter.
On the night of the alleged attack, he said, she wasn’t paralyzed by pills as she has testified.
Richard Schaffer, a sergeant in Pennsylvania’s Cheltenham Township, testified Thursday at Cosby’s trial that he had asked Cosby about the allegation that he assaulted Constand. “Did she tell you to stop?” “No,” Cosby replied. “Was Andrea conscious?” Schaffer asked. “Yes,” Cosby said. Schaffer also said that Cosby told police the pills he had given Constand were Benadryl. After she told him about her trouble sleeping, he reached into the same supply he normally brought on the road to help him sleep, the entertainer told police.
“Did she ever tell you she was paralyzed by the Benadryl?” Schaffer had asked. “No,” Cosby said.
The effect of the day’s testimony, legal experts said, was that Cosby was able to get his story out without subjecting himself to the glare of a cross-examination. That reduced the odds of him taking the stand from very long to virtually nonexistent.
The account contradicts testimony that Constand had given in court over the previous two days, in which she said that there had been no romantic relationship between her and Cosby and that she previously had rebuffed any attempt at sexual contact. She also said she was barely conscious after ingesting the pills that night and did not want any sexual contact.
The defense is seeking to turn the tide after several days of strong testimony from Constand and her mother, which painted Cosby as a friend and mentor who made sudden and unwanted advances, culminating in what Constand describes as an assault.
Cosby told police that neither he nor Constand wanted a serious relationship but that she reciprocated when he had initiated kissing and petting in the months before the night in question.