Judge: Prosecutors can use Bill Cosby’s deposition at trial
PHILADELPHIA — Damaging testimony that Bill Cosby gave in an accuser’s lawsuit, including admissions that he gave young women drugs and alcohol before sex, can be used at his sex assault trial, a judge ruled Monday.
The defence has insisted Cosby testified only after being promised he would never be charged over his 2004 encounter with accuser Andrea Constand. But his lawyers at the time never had an immunity agreement or put anything in writing.
“This court concludes that there was neither an agreement nor a promise not to prosecute, only an exercise of prosecutorial discretion,” Montgomery County Judge Steven O’Neill wrote in his ruling.
Cosby, 79, acknowledged in the 2006 deposition that he had a string of extramarital relationships. He called them consensual, but many of the women say they were drugged and molested. Cosby, questioned about the 2004 encounter at his home with Constand, described being on his couch and putting his hand down her pants.