Bill Cosby admitted in 2005 that he got quaaludes (sleep-inducing drugs) with the intent of giving them to young women he wanted to have sex with, and that he gave the sedative to at least one woman and “other people,” according to documents obtained Monday by The Associated Press.
That woman and a second woman testified in the same case that they knowingly took quaaludes from him, according to the unsealed documents.
Cosby settled that lawsuit under confidential terms in 2006. Cosby has never been criminally charged, and most of the accusations are barred by statutes of limitations.
Cosby, giving sworn testimony in the lawsuit accusing him of sexually assaulting Constand at his home in Pennsylvania in 2005, said he got seven quaalude prescriptions in the 1970s. The lawyer for Constand asked if he had kept the sedatives through the 1990s — after they were banned — but was frustrated by objections from Cosby’s lawyer.
Questioning Cosby in Court
This the conversation between Bill Cosby and counsel Dolores M Troiani in court on Sept. 29, 2005.
Troiani: When you got the quaaludes, was it in your mind that you were going to use these quaaludes for young women that you wanted to have sex with?
Cosby: Yes.
Troiani: Did you ever give any of these young women the quaaludes without their knowledge?
Cosby’s lawyer again objected, leading Troiani to petition the federal judge to force Cosby to cooperate.
Lawyer To The Rescue
“It would be terribly embarrassing for this material to come out,” lawyer George M. Gowen III argued in June. He said the public should not have access to what Cosby was forced to say as he answered questions under oath from the accuser’s lawyer nearly a decade ago.
“Frankly ... it would embarrass him, (and) it would also prejudice him in eyes of the jury pool in Massachusetts,” Gowen said.
US District Judge Eduardo Robreno asked last month why Cosby was fighting the release of his sworn testimony, given that the accusations in the Temple woman’s lawsuit were already in the public eye.
“Why would he be embarrassed by his own version of the facts?” Robreno said.
Cosby resigned in December from the board of trustees at Temple, where he was the popular face of the Philadelphia school in advertisements, fundraising campaigns and commencement speeches.
(With inputs from AP)
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