Excerpts from interview containing Cosby quaalude admission
Excerpts from interview containing Cosby quaalude admission
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Bill Cosby faces a preliminary hearing Tuesday to determine if his criminal sex-assault case in suburban Philadelphia goes to trial.
Prosecutors had declined to charge Cosby over Andrea Constand's complaint in 2005, but arrested him in December after his explosive deposition in the woman's lawsuit became public.
In the testimony given in that deposition, Cosby is grilled about giving drugs and alcohol to women before sex; making secret payments to ex-lovers; and hosting Constand at his home.
The two knew each other through Temple University, where he was a trustee and she managed the women's basketball team.
The following exchanges between Cosby and Constand lawyer Dolores Troiani took place in 2005 and 2006.
Can you tell me ... what you recall of the night in which you gave the pills to Andrea?
The reason why I gave them and offered them to Andrea, which she took after examining them, was because she was talking about stress.
Cosby describes a several-minute sexual encounter that followed.
Troiani asks Cosby about a phone call a year later between Cosby and Constand's mother, Gianni Constand, who told him something was wrong with her daughter, who was also on the line.
A:
Because we're over the telephone and I'm not sending anything (the pill bottle) over the mail and I'm not giving away anything.
Why didn't you simply tell her ... that you had given her daughter an over-the-counter drug called Benadryl?
[...] when I apologize she says to me, "That's all I wanted to know, Bill."
When she sat here and cried (Constand, during her deposition), how did you feel?
Cosby testified that he had gotten quaaludes from his doctor in Los Angeles in the 1970s.
Why didn't you ever take the quaaludes?
A:
Because I used them.
Did you believe at that time that it was illegal for you to dispense those drugs?
How did (the doctor) know that you didn't plan to use (them)?
What was happening at that time was that, that was, quaaludes happen to be the drug that kids, young people were using to party with and there were times when I wanted to have them just in case.
When you got the quaaludes, was it in your mind that you were going to use these quaaludes for young women that you wanted to have sex with?
Cosby acknowledges having a sexual relationship with accuser Therese (Picking) Serignese starting around 1976, when she was 19.
Serignese, who has gone public with her accusations, has said the first time she met Cosby at a Las Vegas hotel in 1976, he gave her quaaludes and a glass of water before they had sex.
What effect did the quaaludes have on her?
Cosby says that while he was filming one of his sitcoms, an agency would send "five or six" models to his studio each week.
Q: (She) used the lotion to rub your penis and make you ejaculate?
Cosby is also asked about a young actress who filed a complaint with New York police that never led to charges.
Do you recall saying that you had threatened to sue the National Enquirer for printing (her) story?
Do you remember how old she was when she worked on the television show?
Did you engage in any type of sexual contact with her while you were on the couch?
Q. Are you aware that the woman's statement was that on the night of the dinner at your New York townhouse, "At some point Cosby and the woman were sitting on a sofa and Cosby was massaging her back?"
Q: "Cosby then lowered his pants in an effort to receive oral sex?"
A: "In an effort to receive oral sex," that did not happen.
Q: "The woman rebuffed Cosby's advances and was immediately sent home, driven by Cosby's driver?"
In paying Therese Serignese, Cosby acknowledges the money would flow through his representatives at the William Morris agency.
Cosby was asked by Constand's lawyer about granting an exclusive interview to the National Enquirer in 2005 in exchange for the tabloid agreeing not to publish a story about accuser Beth Ferrier, who has gone public as another accuser attached to Constand's lawsuit:
Did you ever think that if Beth Ferrier's story was printed in the National Enquirer that would make the public believe that maybe Andrea (Constand) was also telling the truth?
[...] that you knew when (your) article was printed ... that you had to make the public believe that Andrea was not telling the truth?