Constand completes her testimony
Defense attorneys drill main accuser on inconsistencies
Bill Cosby’s accuser, Andrea Constand, stepped down from the witness stand Wednesday and was followed by her mother, Gianna Constand, who was combative and tearful about what her daughter told her the TV icon did to her in 2004.
“He betrayed her,” Gianna Constand said during Day 3 of Cosby’s sexual assault trial.
When asked why she had been aggressive with Cosby when she confronted him by phone, she began crying. She said Cosby and her daughter had been close, and he broke her trust.
“I knew Mr. Cosby had mentored her,” she said. “She viewed him like a father.”
It was another dramatic point in the trial, coming after Andrea Constand’s eight hours of testimony and cross-examination about her accusations that Cosby drugged and molest- ed her. She did not tell her mother about what she said happened until a year later. Her mother immediately called Cosby and they spoke for two hours, she testified.
“The motherly instincts kicked in,” Gianna Constand said.
She testified that Cosby described the encounter with her daughter during their phone conversation, addressing Gianna Constand as “mom.”
“He said, ‘Don’t worry, mom, there was no penetration, just digital penetration,’ ” she said. “He said to me, ‘ And, mom, she even had an orgasm.’ ”
Gianna Constand turned combative with defense attorneys when she was cross-examined, deflecting many questions with “I don’t remember.” Defense lawyer Angela Agrusa pressed her about why she hid the fact that she recorded a second call with Cosby: When he heard beeping, she told him it was her pet parrot.
“You were withholding?” Agrusa asked. “It doesn’t matter,” Gianna Constand answered. Appearing frustrated, Agrusa cut the questioning short and Gianna Constand stepped down.
Earlier, Andrea Constand stuck to her story and ended her testimony with a re-direct by prosecutors seeking to undermine one of the pillars of Cosby’s defense: that Constand had been inconsistent in some details, including ex- actly when the encounter happened.
Cosby’s attorneys tried to argue that Constand intentionally changed the date of the encounter from March 2004 to January 2004 to ensure the timeline would fit into other evidence.
But Constand said she merely misspoke in giving the March date during her statement to police.
Constand also denied defense suggestions that she and Cosby had a romantic relationship leading up to the encounter: “It wasn’t a romantic time, no.”
Cosby, 79, arrived for Day 3 of his trial at the courthouse in suburban Philadelphia as usual, with bodyguards and assistants to help him walk. But he was also accompanied by actress Sheila Frazier, who co-starred with him in the 1978 comedy California Suite. Also with him: Frazier’s husband, John Atchison, a celebrity hairstylist whose client roster includes Cosby and his wife of more than 50 years, Camille.
Neither Camille nor any of their four daughters have been seen so far at Cosby’s trial.
Another notable attendee Wednesday: Civil-rights leader Mary Frances Berry. Prior to the proceedings, she approached the defense table, where Cosby rose and warmly greeted her.