Cosby’s lawyer tries to rattle woman who brought charges
NORRISTOWN, Pa. — Andrea Constand had barely settled onto the witness stand Friday morning when a prosecutor pressed her to address one of the defining issues of Bill Cosby’s retrial: How much money did she get from Cosby to settle her lawsuit against him?
“Three million, three hundred and eighty thousand dollars,” Constand calmly told the Montgomery County Court jury.
The details of that 2006 settlement, which remained confidential until this week, are central to Cosby’s lawyers’ strategy of portraying Constand, whose claims Cosby that drugged and sexually assaulted her led to his criminal charges, as a greedy liar who simply wanted his money.
Opening what could be the most critical testimony of the trial, prosecutors attempted to get in front of Cosby’s lawyers’ attacks.
“Ms. Constand, why are you here?” Assistant District Attorney Kristen Feden asked her.
“For justice,” Constand replied.
In more than two hours of grueling cross-examination that ended the day — and will resume Monday — lead defense lawyer Tom Mesereau opted not to bring up the settlement payout.
Instead, his questions had Constand skipping quickly from one seemingly unrelated topic to the next, moving swiftly through her past statements to police, old roommates, former employers and people she once knew. The effect seemed to keep her — if not the entire courtroom — constantly back-footed.
“Were you ever involved in a pyramid scheme at Temple?” Mesereau said at one point in the midst of a backand-forth about whether she had ever pursued a broadcasting career.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Constand replied. She later said she vaguely remembered forwarding an email a friend sent her — but that came only after Mesereau explained where he was going, and an interruption by the judge demanding to know whether any of it was relevant.
Earlier, the former basketball player had testified with the same calm demeanor she had displayed during two days on the witness stand before last June’s mistrial.
“There no upside” to cooperating with prosecutors after they approached her in 2015, almost a decade after settling the civil case, she testified. “I had moved on and I had healed an old wound, and now I could slowly feel this wound opening up again.”
When asked Friday to identify Cosby as her alleged assailant, she paused and stared at him. Cosby, 80, leaned back in his chair and showed no reaction.