It’s time for Cosby to answer the question

C’mon Bill Cosby, answer the question.

The release of the comedian’s sealed deposition in a 2005 civil suit, brought by a woman who accused him of sexual assault, has dragged Cosby back into the spotlight — and demands a response from him beyond those offered by his lawyers.

For months, Cosby has been dogged by charges from a long line of women that he is a predator who secretly plied them with drugs that left them defenseless to his sexual advances. But through his attorneys, Cosby, 77 — once one of the nation’s most popular television personalities — denies all. They were “decadeold, discredited” allegations, one of his lawyers said in November. Another of his attorneys claimed he had proof that Cosby couldn’t have assaulted at least one of his many accusers.

But in the recently released deposition, Cosby makes an admission that seems to leave open the possibility that he might be the sexual fiend his accusers have branded him. In that legal document, which the Associated Press got a judge to release, Cosby admits that he obtained quaaludes for the purpose of giving them to young women with whom he wanted to have sex.

That admission, it seems to me, is the closest thing we have to evidence of the sex crimes his accusers say Cosby committed. But saying he gave women quaaludes — a sedative that was a widely used recreational drug in the 1970s, when many of the assaults allegedly occurred — is not enough to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the man who was once affectionately called “America’s Dad” is a serial rapist.

That’s because in the 2005 deposition, Cosby stopped short of answering a question he almost certainly will be forced to answer if the civil suit brought by one of his alleged victims goes to trial. In May, former supermodel Janice Dickinson sued Cosby for defamation because his lawyer said her claim that Cosby drugged and raped her “is a fabricated lie.” Though the statute of limitation on that alleged rape has run out, Dickinson’s defamation charge could be one Cosby will have to defend in court, given his admission in the deposition.

You can bet her lawyer will ask him the question his lawyer wouldn’t let him answer in 2005. “Did you ever give any of those young women the quaaludes without their knowledge?”

The case was settled before it went to trial. But it is that question — and its truthful answer — on which Cosby’s reputation and that of his accusers hinge.

Cosby can hope his lawyers will keep Dickinson’s civil suit from finding its way into an open courtroom. But that increasingly sounds like a bad idea. A better strategy is for him to confront his demons — whether they are within him, or circling around him.

DeWayne Wickham, dean of Morgan State University’s School of Global Journalism and Communication, writes weekly for USA TODAY.