Summary: Wednesday was Day 8 of the Bill Cosby criminal trial.
On Wednesday, jurors in the Bill Cosby case heard the comedian’s 2005 testimony about his use of quaaludes on women. According to the Associated Press, “A police detective started reading a transcript of the 2005 testimony as prosecutors saved for the very end of their case Cosby’s own words about using the 1970s party drug “the same as a person would say, ‘Have a drink.'””
The testimony was part of a deposition taken after Temple University employee Andrea Constand accused Cosby of rape in 2004. Police investigated the allegation but did not charge the actor, and Cosby and Constand eventually reached a civil settlement for millions of dollars.
In the testimony, Cosby admitted to giving women quaaludes before sex, an admission that several women accused him of.
Almost a decade after Cosby and Constand settled, the Philadelphia District Attorney vowed to file criminal charges against Cosby after dozens of women claimed that the once beloved TV star had drugged and sexually assaulted him throughout the decades.
Cosby was tried last year for the sexual assault of Constand, but the trial resulted in a hung jury. This month, the retrial began, and on Wednesday, day eight, jurors heard a police officer read Cosby’s 2005 statement.
The Cosby statement was also read at his first trial, and the statement’s purpose for the prosecution was supposed to show Cosby’s pattern as a serial abuser.
Cosby has admitted to having a sexual encounter with Constand at his home in 2004, but he said that the sex was consensual. On Wednesday, his defense team introduced a star witness, a Temple University employee, Marguerite Jackson, who said that Constand had said that she was going after Cosby for his money.
“She said, ‘No, I could say it did,’” Jackson said on Wednesday, according to Deadline. “‘I could go get money and go back to school and open a business.’”
Jackson claimed that she had once taken a Temple University road trip with the accuser and that Constand had said that the Cosby rape “didn’t happen.”
Jackson was not allowed to testify at the first trial, but USA Today said that Jackson’s testimony was a part of the defense team’s tactic to discredit Constand as a con artist. Prosecutors questioned whether or not Jackson and Constand had ever actually interacted in the way that Jackson said.
On Wednesday, the jury also heard testimony from the prosecution’s witness Judith Regan. The book publisher said that Janice Dickinson had written about her alleged rape by Cosby i her memoir, but that it was not allowed to be published because the legal department said she needed to have a corroborating witness.
Cosby faces three charges of aggravated indecent assault, and if convicted, the comic could face 30 years in jail, ten for each count.
Cosby’s legal defense is lead by defense lawyer Tom Mesereau. The case is being presided over by Judge Steven O’Neill.