Prosecutors
fight to use Cosby's own words at June trial
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[April 04, 2017]
By Joseph Ax
NORRISTOWN, Pa. (Reuters) -
Lawyers for comedian Bill Cosby and Pennsylvania
prosecutors clashed in court on Monday over whether his
own words can be used against him at his sexual assault
trial in June.
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Prosecutors are seeking to use numerous statements they say
show Cosby's willingness to use intoxicants to incapacitate
women before assaulting them.
"This evidence demonstrates that he thinks it's OK to give women
drugs in order to have sex with them," Assistant District
Attorney M. Stewart Ryan told Judge Steven O'Neill of the Court
of Common Pleas in Montgomery County in Norristown, just west of
Philadelphia.
But Cosby's lawyer, Brian McMonagle, accused prosecutors of
trying a "back-door play" that would effectively let them
introduce evidence of other sexual assault allegations unrelated
to the case involving Andrea Constand, a former basketball coach
at Temple University who accused Cosby of giving her pills in
2004 that left her unable to resist.
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More than 50 women have leveled accusations at the 79-year-old
Cosby, some stretching back decades. But the Pennsylvania case
is the only criminal prosecution he has faced to date.
Cosby, whose career and wholesome image were shattered by the
accusations, has said every sexual encounter was consensual.
During sworn depositions taken after Constand sued Cosby, the
entertainer acknowledged obtaining prescription sedatives in the
1970s to give to young women.
Prosecutors said they should be allowed to use excerpts from
Cosby's autobiography and statements he made in a 1991
television interview, in which he described the power of an
aphrodisiac called "Spanish fly" to put women in the "mood."
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But Cosby's lawyers said the deposition testimony had nothing to do
with Constand and the "Spanish fly" comments were jokes, not
evidence.
"It was comedy," McMonagle told O'Neill. "It was not an admission."
Meanwhile, McMonagle said he would undermine Constand's credibility
by portraying her civil lawsuit as an attempt to get money.
But he asked O'Neill to bar the prosecution from mentioning the
subsequent civil settlement, in which Cosby paid her an undisclosed
sum in exchange for her agreement not to cooperate with future law
enforcement efforts.
Prosecutors, however, said they should be allowed to bring up the
deal to rebut the defense's attempts to impugn Constand's motives.
Jury selection will begin next month in Pittsburgh, hundreds of
miles away. O'Neill previously agreed to empanel jurors from another
county because of pretrial publicity. The jury will be in Norristown
for the expected two weeks of trial.
(Reporting by Joseph Ax; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Grant
McCool)
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