Women testify Cosby drugged, assaulted them
NORRISTOWN » Struggling to catch her breath at times and sobbing uncontrollably, a onetime aspiring actress and model told a jury that actor Bill Cosby drugged and molested her during a meeting inside a Las Vegas hotel room in 1986.
Chelan Lasha, of California, testified in Montgomery County Court on Wednesday that the sexual assault occurred inside the Elvis Presley suite at the Las Vegas Hilton where Cosby had invited her to come for a mentoring session “to help me with my modeling” and discuss a new character on “The Cosby Show.”
Lasha, who was suffering
from a cold at the time, said Cosby gave her “a little blue pill” she believed was an antihistamine and two shots of amaretto. “He said it would break up my cold. I trusted him. I got a little woozy, bewildered,” Lasha wept under questioning by Assistant District Attorney M. Stewart Ryan.
Lasha claimed Cosby proceeded to guide her to a bedroom, placed her in a bed and then lay beside her.
“I could barely move. I couldn’t move my body. He kept pinching on my breast and humping on my leg and grunting,” said Lasha, making forceful grunting sounds to mimic the sound she claimed came from Cosby.
Asked what she was thinking at the time, Lasha said she kept saying to herself, “Dr. Huxtable what are you doing to me? Why are you doing this to me? You’re supposed to help me be successful.”
Cosby played Dr. Cliff Huxtable on “The Cosby Show” from 1984 to 1992.
Lasha, who was 17 at the time and had just graduated from high school, testified she later awoke to find her shirt was off and to Cosby’s voice saying, “Daddy says wake up.” Lasha claimed she was abruptly escorted from the hotel and later that day confided in her guidance counselor and then her sister about the alleged incident.
According to Lasha’s testimony, she met Cosby through family members who were acquainted with him.
Under cross-examination by defense lawyer Kathleen Bliss, Lasha said she didn’t tell authorities about the alleged incident until 2014, claiming she had been “afraid and ashamed.” Testimony also revealed Lasha has sought legal representation from well-known celebrity lawyer Gloria Allred and held a press conference to reveal her allegations.
Lasha didn’t refute that she has an unrelated 2007 conviction for making a false report to law enforcement, a fact Bliss used to attack her credibility.
Lasha’s testimony included numerous emotional outbursts, including one, while the judge was advising the jury about an upcoming break, she suddenly, and without a question being posed, looked at Cosby and loudly uttered, “You remember, don’t you Mr. Cosby?”
Later, Bliss, out of earshot of the jurors, asked Judge Steven T. O’Neill to declare a mistrial. O’Neill denied that request but later gave a “curative instruction” to the jurors to strike Lasha’s excited utterance to Cosby from their minds, advising them it was not evidence.
Lasha was one of three women, who accuse Cosby of sexual misconduct between the years 1982 and 1996, who District Attorney Kevin R. Steele called as witnesses during the first two days of Cosby’s retrial on charges he sexually assaulted one woman, Andrea Constand, in 2004.
Cosby faces three counts of aggravated indecent assault in connection with allegations he had inappropriate sexual contact with Constand, a former Temple University athletic department employee, at his Cheltenham home after plying her with blue pills and wine sometime between mid-January and mid-February 2004.
Steele is relying on the other accusers to demonstrate Cosby’s alleged “common plan, scheme and design” and as supportive evidence of the charges lodged against Cosby for his alleged assault of Constand.
Lead defense lawyer Thomas Mesereau Jr. has attacked the prosecution’s strategy of having other accusers of uncharged conduct testify at the trial, arguing, “When you don’t have a case you have to fill the time with something else.”
Janice Baker-Kinney, a former bartender at Harrah’s casino in Reno, Nev., where Cosby was performing, testified Cosby had sexual contact with her during a pizza party at a guest house in 1982. Baker-Kinney admitted she voluntarily took two pills that she believed where quaaludes from Cosby on his advice, “it will be ok.”
“In hindsight it was a stupid thing to do. Even though I didn’t know him I trusted him,” Baker-Kinney testified, adding she got very “dizzy” and “faceplanted” and “passed out” into the backgammon board at which they were seated.