Andrea Constand Tells Court How Bill Cosby Was 'Groping' Her
Andrea Constand testified during Bill Cosby’s trial Tuesday, saying he gave her pills which made her unconscious and she later woke up to find him groping her and making other forms of sexual contact with her.
“I felt Mr. Cosby’s hands groping my breasts under my shirt. I also felt his hand inside my vagina moving in and out. I felt him take my hand and place it on his penis and move it back and forth,” she told prosecutors, the Los Angeles Times reported.
79-year-old Cosby is charged with three counts of aggravated indecent assault against Constand, which he denies. If convicted, the comedian could face a decade in prison.
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Constand, a 44-year-old massage therapist from Toronto told the Montgomery County Courthouse in Pennsylvania she met Cosby in 2002 while working for the women’s basketball team at Temple University in Philadelphia and continued socializing after that. She also said Cosby was mentoring her for a career in sports broadcast.
On the night in January 2004, when the assault allegedly took place, Constand said they had dinner at his Philadelphia mansion after which he gave her three blue pills to “take the edge off.”
“He said ‘put them down [your throat]. They’re your friends; they’ll take the edge off,’” she said. Constand also said she trusted Cosby and took the pills after which, “I began slurring my words. I told Mr. Cosby I had trouble seeing him — that I could see two of him. My mouth was very cottony.”
Her testimony continued to say she had trouble standing up after taking the pills and that Cosby led her to the couch to lie down and gave her a pillow before she became unconscious. Sometime later, she said she awoke when she felt physical contact and realized Cosby touching her sexually.
Constand also reportedly said Cosby had made advances at her in the past, having put a hand on her thigh and, on another occasion, tried to undress her before withdrawing when she said "I'm not here for that. I don't want that," Time magazine reported.
The defense asked her why she had called Cosby 53 times after the alleged assault, to which Constand said they were about the women’s basketball team and often during a tournament period, and that "it had more to do with business than it did with me personally."
She also said she wanted to stop Cosby but could not. "In my head, I was trying to get my hands to move or my legs to move,” she said. “But I was frozen, and those messages didn't get there and I was very limited. I wasn't able to fight in any way. I wanted it to stop."
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Constand is one of around 60 women who have accused Cosby of sexually violating them but the prosecution has gone ahead on just Constand’s allegations due to the statute of limitations passing for nearly every other of those claims.
Even Constand’s allegations came a year after the assault allegedly happened, which she said was because she felt insecure about reporting Cosby. "I felt that if I had gone to the police, Mr. Cosby would retaliate and try to hurt me, that he would try to hurt me and my family in some way," ABC News reported.
Tuesday’s testimony from Constand was also the first time she had spoken publicly about Cosby, due to the terms of a confidential 2006 settlement preventing her from doing so. Her deposition taken during that lawsuit is still reportedly sealed.
This was not, however, the first testimony at the trial. Kelly Johnson from Atlanta, who worked for one of Cosby’s agents, William Morris Agency, previously testified he gave her a “big white pill” before sexually assaulting her at a Bel Air hotel in 1996.
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