Judge: References to ‘Spanish Fly’ excluded from trial
NORRISTOWN >> Bill Cosby has won his bid to prevent prosecutors from using, at his upcoming trial on charges he sexually assaulted a woman in 2004, references he made to the aphrodisiac Spanish fly in a 1991 book and television interview.
Ruling against prosecutors, Montgomery County Judge Steven T. O’Neill on Friday granted Cosby’s pretrial motion to exclude “all references to Spanish Fly” when the entertainer’s trial gets under way on June 5.
Cosby, 79, faces charges of aggravated indecent assault in connection with his alleged contact with Andrea Constand, a former Temple University athletic department employee, after ply-
ing her with blue pills and wine at his Cheltenham home sometime between mid-January and mid-February 2004.
The judge did not elaborate on the ruling but it was based on arguments he heard from the prosecution and defense teams during a pretrial hearing earlier this month.
During that hearing, District Attorney Kevin R. Steele and co-prosecutors M. Stewart Ryan and Kristen Feden argued excerpts from Cosby’s book and a television interview should be admissible to “demonstrate motive and intent” at Cosby’s upcoming trial.
Referring to Cosby’s 1991 book “Childhood,” prosecutors
argued the actor recounted a memory from his youth in which he and his friends seek out “Spanish Fly, an aphrodisiac so potent that it could have made Lena Horne surrender to Fat Albert.” Cosby, prosecutors alleged, wrote that he and his friends needed the aphrodisiac because females were “never in the mood for us.”
The book excerpts, prosecutors maintained, also suggested Cosby “had a willingness and motive to push ‘chemicals’ to obtain sex from the otherwise unwilling victim.”
Prosecutors also argued that in a1991 interview on “The Larry King Show,” Cosby extolled Spanish fly as a drug that “all boys from age 11 on up to death” will be searching for.
But defense lawyers Brian J. McMonagle and Angela C. Agrusa asked the judge to keep Cosby’s Spanish fly references out of the trial.
“This is a comedy routine and not relevant. It was comedy. I don’t think it’s worthy of great debate,” McMonagle argued during the April 3 pretrial hearing.
In court papers, defense
lawyers argued Cosby’s remarks were a form of artistic expression and social commentary.
Jury selection for Cosby’s trial begins May 22 in Pittsburgh.
On March 13, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court selected Allegheny County as the site for jury selection. The state’s highest court was responding to O’Neill’s Feb. 27 request that another county be chosen for the jury selection process.
When jury selection does commence, Cosby and his security entourage, county prosecutors, defense lawyers, O’Neill and likely a contingent of the judge’s staff will travel to Pittsburgh to select the panel.
Those Pittsburgh-area citizens selected to weigh Cosby’s fate will then be transported to Montgomery County and sequestered
in an area hotel for the duration of the trial, which lawyers have implied will last at least two weeks.
The trial represents the first time Cosby, who played Dr. Cliff Huxtable on “The Cosby Show” from 1984 to 1992, has been charged with a crime despite allegations from dozens of women who claimed they were assaulted by the entertainer.
Cosby currently remains free on 10 percent of $1 million bail. If convicted of the charges at trial, the former sitcom star faces a possible maximum sentence of 15 to 30 years in prison.
The newspaper does not normally identify victims of sex crimes without their consent but is using Constand’s name because she has identified herself publicly.