The woman at the centre of Bill Cosby’s sexual assault trial choked back tears yesterday as she told a court how America’s top television entertainer drugged her and molested her after she passed out.
“I wasn’t able to fight in any way. I wanted it to stop,” Andrea Constand, 44, told the jury on the second day of the trial in Norristown, Pennsylvania.
Mr Cosby, 79, is accused of indecent assault in 2004 against Ms Constand, then a basketball manager at Temple University, where the actor was a sports donor.
Sixty women have accused the actor of sexual assault and more than 50 have filed civil suits but Ms Constand’s is the only case to reach a criminal trial. He denies the charges and wrongdoing in all cases.
Recalling the events of the night in January 2004 for the first time in public, Ms Constand told the jury that she had been “jolted awake” by the realisation that Mr Cosby was sexually assaulting her during a dinner at his home in Pennsylvania.
Advertisement
That evening, Ms Constand told Mr Cosby she was nervous about her plans to resign from her job and he left the room and returned with three pills. “He said these will help you relax,” she recalled. “I said ‘what are they — are they natural, are they herbal?’ He nodded. He said: ‘They’ll take the edge off’.”
The two continued to converse over wine for 30 minutes when Ms Constand said she “began to slur my words”. Her legs turned to rubber and she began seeing double, the court heard.
Mr Cosby led her to a couch, telling her to relax. From then on “I had no recollection [of fainting] until at some point later I was jolted awake and I felt Mr Cosby’s hand groping my breasts under my shirt,” she said.
“I also felt his hand inside . . . and I felt him take my hand and place it on his penis . . . In my head, I was trying to get my hands to move or my legs to move, but I was frozen.” Afterwards, she said, “I felt really humiliated and I felt really confused.”
The defence cited phone records showing Ms Constand called Mr Cosby 53 times after the alleged assault. Ms Constand told the jury the calls mostly involved the women’s basketball team, especially around tournament time.
Advertisement
“It had more to do with business than it did with me personally,” she said.
Mr Cosby never looked towards the witness stand, where his accuser delivered her testimony and faced questions. He spent the morning in court seemingly unmoved by the frenzied activities of lawyers around him.
“Kelly Johnson said the drug made her physically incapable of resisting him
He did not answer reporters’ questions as he made his way into the court house, but did wish a supporter a happy birthday. “How old?” he asked.
Yesterday’s session began with a setback for the defence. Two witnesses corroborated testimony that Mr Cosby had assaulted another woman, Kelly Johnson, who had spoken of her alleged ordeal the previous day.
Patrice Sewell, Ms Johnson’s mother, recalled her daughter telling her in tears that the television star drugged her, sexually assaulted her and then tried to get her fired from her job as an assistant to his talent agent.
Advertisement
At the time, Mr Cosby was one of the country’s most beloved actors, producing and starring in The Cosby Show, which was watched by a quarter of American households in the 1980s.
Mr Cosby is not being charged for an alleged crime against Ms Johnson but prosecution lawyers called her and her mother for their testimonies to show that the actor engaged in a pattern of sexual behaviour for years.
Another witness, Joseph Miller, a lawyer for the agency where Ms Johnson worked, also testified that she had described the alleged assault in a sworn statement.
The testimony appeared to catch the defence by surprise and the lawyers attempted to call a mistrial based on a legal technicality. The motion was overruled and the trial continues.