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 The Montgomery County district attorney's office is seeking
to use excerpts from Cosby's autobiography as well as statements
he made in a 1991 television interview in which he described the
power of an aphrodisiac he called "Spanish fly" to persuade
women to engage in sexual conduct with him.
Meanwhile, lawyers for the 79-year-old entertainer want the
trial judge to bar prosecutors from mentioning the confidential
civil settlement he signed in 2006 with his accuser, Andrea
Constand, a former basketball coach at Temple University.
The Pennsylvania case is the only criminal prosecution Cosby
faces after more than 50 women leveled sexual misconduct
allegations at him stretching back decades. Cosby, whose career
and wholesome image were shattered by the accusations, has said
every sexual encounter was consensual.
Like numerous other women, Constand has accused Cosby of giving
her pills in order to incapacitate her.
In court documents filed last week, prosecutors said Cosby's
description of Spanish fly demonstrated his long-held interest
in "date-rape drugs."
"He explained that all it took was a single drop into a woman's
drink, and she was then yours," prosecutors wrote in recounting
Cosby's 1991 appearance on CNN's "Larry King Live."
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But Cosby's lawyers responded that the comments were jokes intended
to entertain his audience and had nothing to do with the present
case.
"These jokes are not about Mr. Cosby, not about assault, and not
about rendering anyone unconscious," his lawyers wrote.
In addition, defense lawyers plan to ask Court of Common Pleas Judge
Steven O'Neill to keep jurors from hearing about the settlement he
signed with Constand in her civil case, arguing that it could be
seen as evidence of criminal guilt.
A federal judge in 2015 released excerpts from a deposition Cosby
gave in Constand's civil case in which Cosby acknowledged having
obtained Quaaludes, the brand name for a sedative widely abused as a
recreational drug in the 1970s, with the intent of giving the pills
to young women in order to have sex with them.
The two sides in the criminal case are also expected to argue over
how to proceed with jury selection, given the amount of publicity
that the case has generated.
(Reporting by Joseph Ax; Editing by Steve Gorman and Mary Milliken)
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