Cosby’s accuser wants right to tell story
Her settlement with comedian included confidentiality clause
PHILADELPHIA — Andrea Constand, the former Temple University employee who lodged sexual assault allegations against Bill Cosby in a 2005 lawsuit, now says she wants to publicly tell her story.
In court filings Wednesday, Constand asked a federal judge in Philadelphia to void a confidentiality agreement in her settlement deal with the comedian, saying he and his representatives have repeatedly violated its terms and have left her little recourse but to respond.
She also asked for the release of a full transcript of a deposition Cosby gave in the case.
Excerpts of that deposition — unsealed this week — have reignited more recent controversy tied to allegations from more than two dozen other women who have also accused the 77-year-old comedian of sexual misconduct.
In the excerpts, Cosby testified that he had obtained prescriptions for quaaludes in the 1970s to use in sexual encounters with women and had offered college scholarships to two accusers who threatened to go public with their allegations that he had sexually assaulted them.
Cosby’s lawyer, Patrick O’Connor, has argued in recent court filings that those portions of the transcript do not provide a full picture of Cosby’s testimony.
“The public can make a determination as to whether or not the statements and questions were taken out of context” should the full transcript be released, Constand’s lawyers said in their filing Wednesday.
Constand alleged that Cosby drugged and groped her when she went to his Cheltenham mansion in 2004 seeking career advice. Cosby maintained that he only gave her Benadryl and that their sexual encounter was consensual.
He has denied assaulting Constand or any other woman and has never faced assault charges.
But before settling her suit in 2006, Constand had lined up as potential witnesses 13 other women willing to testify that Cosby had also drugged and assaulted them.
The confidentiality agreement in Constand’s case also bars her — and Cosby — from discussing the women’s allegations publicly. And yet, Constand’s lawyers said, the comedian and his representatives have repeatedly spread “numerous and inaccurate statements and innuendos” about the women’s allegations in recent months. (Two of those women are among the three currently suing Cosby for defamation in Maryland.)
In November, Cosby referred to the stories of some of those women as “decade-old, discredited allegations.”