Bill Cosby has appeared in court in an attempt to get the first criminal case against him dismissed
6:09PM GMT 02 Feb 2016
Bill Cosby, the disgraced American comedian, has appeared before a judge in Philadelphia in the first criminal case involving sexual abuse.
Cosby, 78, has been accused by almost 60 women of sexual abuse between 1965 and 2008. But, because the accusations are historic, most will never come to court.
On Tuesday, however, the Philadelphia-born entertainer was forced to face charges brought against him by Andrea Constand – who accuses him of abusing her in 2004.
Dressed in a brown tweed jacket suit and walking into court with a cane, leaning on two imposing, sunglass-wearing minders, Cosby sat calmly before the packed courtroom. Miss Constand, a Canadian, was not in court. Cosby’s lawyers argued that the trial should not be allowed to proceed because in 2005 he gave, under oath, a written deposition relating to the accusations, on the understanding that he would not face further charges.
Bruce Castor, who until 2008 was Montgomery County district attorney, decided at the time not to press charges in what he viewed as a "he said, she said" case.
He told the court on Tuesday that Cosby's lawyer - who is now dead - told him they believed Cosby's phone had been wiretapped, and that Ms Constand was trying to get money out of him.
He also said the fact she had reported the alleged assault a year after it happened meant there were no means of obtaining forensic evidence.
"The fact that Ms Constand had given multiple statements which had inconsistencies, and the behaviour which I thought was inconsistent with someone who had suffered a sexual assault, created credibility damage I saw as irreparable," said Mr Castor, who was district attorney until 2008.
"I thought then, and I still think now, that making Mr Cosby pay money to Ms Constand was the best I could do."
So confident was Mr Castor that Cosby should never be prosecuted he even wrote to his successor warning her not to consider reigniting the case.
“The matter was resolved, and I was hopeful I had made Miss Constand a millionaire,” he said.
Ms Constand, who is gay, was a basketball coach at Temple University when she met Cosby in around 2002. The pair became friends, and Cosby said he served as her mentor.
In the deposition Cosby described at least two separate nights when they engaged in "sex play" at his Philadelphia home – the first time, after she had four drinks, and the second time, after he gave her unidentified pills. Cosby said he never drank or took illegal drugs, although he acknowledged acquiring the sedative Quaaludes in the 1970s, to use on women he hoped to seduce.
In January 2004 Ms Constand, then 31, visited Cosby at his home and, he said, she sought his help.
"Andrea came to the house. We talked about Temple University. We talked about her position. And then I went upstairs and I got three pills ... because she was talking about stress.
"We sat for 15 or 20 minutes talking. I then said, 'Let's go into the living room.' I asked her to have a sit down on the sofa. We were still talking. But then we began to neck and we began to touch and we began to feel and kiss and kiss back."
Cosby described the "digital penetration" that followed as something of a favour, to help her unwind.
"I was hoping (it) had been a sort of a contribution to happiness, friendship, a moment that we shared," Cosby said.
Ms Constand later said she was too drugged to remember it clearly. Cosby, in a taped phone call with Constand and her distraught mother a year later, confirmed that he gave her pills and described the sex act.
"Tell your mother you were awake. Tell your mother about the orgasm. Tell your mother how we talked," Cosby begged on the phone call.
Over the next few days, his agents and handlers made a flurry of calls to their family home to offer an educational fund or suggest they meet him at his next show in Miami. The Constands instead gave the tape to police in Canada, who referred the case to Pennsylvania investigators.
Allegations about Cosby had been swirling since the early 2000s. He has always denied the charges.
Almost 60 women have, since November 2014, come forward to accuse the father of five of assault. Judge Thomas O'Neill is expected to decide within a few days whether the trial should proceed.
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