Cosby accuser tells her story
PHILADELPHIA — Andrea Constand remained something of an enigma over the years her sexual assault allegations against Bill Cosby played out in Pennsylvania courts and the public square.
An athlete and spiritual seeker turned massage therapist, she lived a quiet life with her dogs in Toronto until the case burst open again in 2015. She had remained largely anonymous during the initial police investigation in 2005, when a local prosecutor declined to arrest Cosby. And she signed a nondisclosure agreement a year later when she settled her lawsuit against the wealthy entertainer for $3.4 million.
However, after details of the settlement — including the amount she received — were aired in court, Constand decided to tell her story in a memoir out Tuesday called “The Moment.” The book lands amid a stunning turn of events in the case.
Cosby, after spending nearly three years in prison, walked free in June when the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned his 2018 conviction. The court found that Cosby relied on an alleged promise from a district attorney that he would never be charged when he gave incriminating testimony in Constand’s civil lawsuit — only to have it later used against him in two criminal trials.
Prosecutors in suburban Philadelphia must decide this month whether to appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. Cosby recently turned 84.
“Now that I have weathered yet another strange turn in this long saga, I realize that I cannot let reversals like the (Pennsylvania) Supreme Court decision defeat me. Life is unpredictable. Much is beyond our control. In the end, happiness is all that matters and I am determined to live a happy, purposeful life,” Constand writes in a late addition to the book.
She and Cosby first crossed paths at Temple University in Philadelphia, where Constand, who played professional basketball in Europe, worked for the women’s basketball team and he was a trustee and famed alumnus.
In a deposition, Cosby said he fell in love with Constand the moment he first saw her across the gym. Constand was half his age and dated women.
Constand said she won’t let a trial verdict define her, especially given the progress she sees in the #MeToo movement.
As she waited for the jury decision in 2018, she writes, “The outcome of the trial seemed strangely unimportant. It was as if the world had again shifted in some much more significant way.”