‘SORRY’ COS TOLD COPS: ‘I’M A DIRTY OLD MAN’
ConfessedConf in ‘sex assault’ deposition read aloud at Pa. trial
Bill Cosby told copsco that he was a “dirty old man” afteraft a sexual encounter counter with his mumuch younger accuser,cuser, according to testimony at his assault trial Friday. The revelation of ththe cringe-worthy admission, heard for the first time by jurors, came the sasame day Cosby’s rep said the 79-yeayear-old comedian may take the stands after all. CosbCosby — on trial for alleallegedly sexually assaulting former protégé Andrea Constand — gave himself the creepy title while explaining to cops why he had apologized to Constand’s mom.
“I’m apologizing because I’m thinking this is a dirty old man and a young girl,” Cosby told the officers, referring to himself and Constand, according to a deposition read aloud in court.
Cosby was a married 66-year-old father at the time of the 2004 alleged assault. Constand was 31.
After the trial proceedings ended for the day, Cosby’s spokesman, Andrew Wyatt, raised the possibility that the fallen funnyman would testify on his own behalf.
“You have to look at all your options,” he said. “Nothing is ever off the table in a trial of this magnitude.
“In a ballgame, things change and players are taken out, and sometimes
the star player plays, and sometimes he doesn’t.”
Cosby had said last month that he wouldn’t be taking the stand.
Legal experts said the aboutface could be a sign that Cosby’s team thinks he’s in trouble.
“It seems to me that Cosby’s ship is sinking, and it’s a desperate attempt to right the ship,” veteran Manhattan defense lawyer Dan Ollen told The Post. “It sounds like now he’s got nothing to lose.”
Cosby has been accused of three counts of aggravated indecent assault in the alleged drugging and molestation of Constand at his home in suburban Philadelphia. Each count carries up to 10 years in prison.
Jurors sat through hours of depositions read aloud in the Norristown, Pa., courtroom Friday.
In one, the comic told cops he gave Constand 1 ¹/2 tablets of Benadryl to help her “relax.”
Earlier this week, Constand testified that she felt “frozen” after taking three blue pills and passing out the night she woke up to Cosby groping her.
The TV pioneer, once nicknamed “America’s Dad” for his role as Dr. Cliff Huxtable on “The Cosby Show,” admitted to offering to finance the then-31-yearold woman’s graduate studies after the incident, saying he feared a future shakedown.
“Do you think either Andrea or her mother was going to use this information to embarrass or extort you?” an investigator asked him in 2005, according to testimony. “Yes,” Cosby replied. Meanwhile, the disgraced comic and others in the courtroom erupted into laughter on Day 5 of the closely watched trial as a Pennsylvania detective struggled to pronounce the name of a medication that Cosby may have slipped Constand.
“Dr. Huxtable?” Detective James Reape meekly said to chuckles after stumbling over the word diphenhydramine, the generic name for Benadryl.
About 60 other women have accused Cosby — who has been married to wife Camille for 53 years — of drugging and sexually assaulting them.
Camille Cosby, as well as other Cosby family members, have been noticeably absent for the trial so far, although Wyatt promised, “You will eventually be seeing family in the courtroom.”
“The nature of the situation is not one that would be comfortable for Mrs. Cosby,” Wyatt said.
At one point Friday, defense lawyer Brian McMonagle inadvertently compared Cosby to a sexual predator.
Psychologist Veronique Valliere had just testified for the prosecution about how a victim might react after a sex assault. She described how victims often shut down as they try to reconcile what happened, especially in cases where the attacker was someone they trusted.
But McMonagle objected to Valliere’s hypothetical.
“What she’s discussing is eerily, quite frankly, similar to what has been alleged in this case,” the lawyer said in a losing bid to get her testimony tossed.
It also emerged that Cosby’s lawyers had sought to grill Constand, who has come out as a lesbian, on her sexual orientation and on her alleged previous relationship with a “male celebrity athlete,” suggesting she might not be gay, Philly.com reported.
Constand’s civil lawyers have cited her sexual orientation as further proof she would not have consented to sex with Cosby.
The defense’s request was made during a closed-door meeting on June 1 and was shot down by Judge Steven O’Neill.