Bill Cosby accuser Andrea Constand tells of shock at decision to set him free
Andrea Constand, who accused Bill Cosby of sexual assault in a case that sent the US comedian to prison, has spoken about her shock at learning of the decision that set him free in June.
“Bill Cosby walks free,” Constand told NBC on Tuesday, “but it doesn’t change the fact that my testimony was believed.” She said she was “really shocked” and “disappointed” by a decision she said showed the US justice system to be “flawed”.
Constand met the television star at Temple University in Philadelphia, where she worked with the basketball programme and Cosby was a famous graduate and trustee.
In a new memoir, The Moment, she describes their friendship and how she took pills he offered one night in January 2004, presuming they were herbal products.
She found her body going numb, she writes, adding: “My inability to control my own body was utterly terrifying. At 6ft, I’m the opposite of petite … I had never before, even as a child, felt physically intimidated by anyone or anything. I was an athlete. But now I had no control over my limbs.”
In a deposition, Cosby said he fell in love with Constand. His lawyers said their relationship was consensual.
After a police investigation, a local prosecutor declined to arrest Cosby. A year later Constand signed a nondisclosure agreement, when she settled a lawsuit against Cosby for $3.4m. The athlete turned massage therapist lived quietly in Toronto until allegations against Cosby by more than 60 women thrust her into the spotlight in 2015.
In 2017, Constand testified at Cosby’s first trial over the alleged assault, which ended in a mistrial. In 2018 she testified at a second trial, when the jury convicted Cosby of drug
ging and violating her. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison, a highprofile conviction in the #MeToo era, in which women have sought to bring to account powerful sexual predators. It was a dramatic downfall for a comedian once known as “America’s dad”, for his wholesome public image.
But the 84-year-old walked free this June, after the Pennsylvania supreme court overturned his conviction. In a decision that provoked widespread outrage, the court found that Cosby relied on an alleged promise from a district attorney that he would never be charged when he gave incriminating testimony in a civil lawsuit brought by Constand – only to have it used against him in two criminal trials.
Prosecutors in Philadelphia must decide this month whether to appeal to the US supreme court.
Constand told NBC said she had “come a way too far to go back to that place, to wonder whether it was all worth it, or to have regrets.
“It was worth it. But it was worth it because I didn’t feel alone. I had a whole community, a whole army of women and other survivors, strangers, family, friends, who were right there with me.
“Bill Cosby walks free, but it doesn’t change the fact that my testimony was believed.”
In her book, Constand describes a secret meeting with jurors after Cosby was sentenced in 2018.
“As we hugged,” she writes, “I heard the same words over and over: ‘We always believed you, Andrea.’ Of course their verdict told me they had come to the conclusion that my testimony was credible. But there was something about hearing the words ... that knocked the wind out of me.”
To NBC, she said celebrations by Cosby and his supporters when he left prison were “disgusting but didn’t surprise me, given the level of the arrogance and having no remorse during the time he was incarcerated. Absolutely zero remorse for what he did to me.
“He’s a sexually violent predator who basically was let out of jail.”
Constand has founded a group to help survivors of sexual assault. Cosby has said he may tour again. Constand said she didn’t really care if he returned to the stage, but would tell “anybody that gives him a platform: rape is not a joke.”
• Information and support for anyone affected by rape or sexual abuse issues is available from the following organisations. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support on 0808 802 9999. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html