Cosby lawyers ask to exclude testimony on other women, pills

Cosby, 79, is charged with drugging and molesting Andrea Constand, a then-Temple University basketball team manager, in 2004.

Dozens of other women have made similar accusations, but O’Neill will allow only one of them to testify, a woman who worked for his agent and said she was drugged and assaulted in 1996. She is not part of the deposition because she had not yet come forward.

Cosby, in the deposition, said he had gotten seven prescriptions for quaaludes in the 1970s to give women before sex. He said he did not use quaaludes or other drugs himself. The powerful sedative was banned in the U.S. in 1983, and Cosby said he no longer had any on hand when he befriended Constand 20 years later.

“Quaaludes have not been available in this country for two decades,” lawyers Brian McMonagle and Angela Agrusa wrote in the filing. “Any discussion of quaaludes would only divert the jury away from its duty of weighing the evidence as to Ms. Constand, the only alleged victim.”

Cosby offered Constand an educational fund in a taped phone call made days after she accused him of sexual misconduct in early 2005. Constand’s mother told him they just wanted an apology. Constand then went to police, and sued Cosby when prosecutors at the time declined to press charges. A new prosecutor reopened the case in 2015 after Cosby’s deposition became public and more women came forward.

The trial is set to start June 5 in Montgomery County, outside of Philadelphia. Cosby has pleaded not guilty. O’Neill has said the jury can hear the taped phone call.

Maryclaire Dale, The Associated Press

by Canadian Press

Cosby lawyers ask to exclude testimony on other women, pills

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