Will Bill Cosby’s jury hear him admit to drugging a 19-year-old with quaaludes? Not if his lawyers have their say
Lawyers spar over Cosby’s deposition from a civil suit ahead of his retrial on criminal charges on April 9; jury selection scheduled Monday
Prosecutors and defense lawyers sparred Friday over whether jurors at Bill Cosby’s retrial will hear lurid deposition testimony from the comedian about giving sedatives to women before sex.
Cosby faces charges that he drugged former Temple University athletics administrator Andrea Constand at his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004 after surreptitiously giving her quaalude tablets.
He admitted to police in a previous deposition that he gave drugs to women in the 1970s before having sex with them.
But his defence lawyer, Becky James, insisted on Friday that “The ‘70s isn’t relevant in this case”, and claimed that use of the drug as a sex aid was common then.
“It was not to assault them”, said James. “It was not to make them incapacitated. It was never with the purpose or intent of having sex with unconsenting women.”
