Cosby lawyers: Release of deposition broke settlement terms
Jul 23, 2015, 2:24 PM
FILE - In this May 12, 2011 file photo, comedian Bill Cosby attends Temple University's commencement in Philadelphia. Cosby and Temple University have disassociated, but now his lawyer is feeling heat for representing the comedian in a molestation lawsuit while serving on the university's board of trustees. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
(AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Bill Cosby’s lawyers on Thursday asked a judge to hold an accuser’s attorney responsible for the release of the comedian’s deposition in a 2005 Pennsylvania case.
They fault Andrea Constand’s lawyers for the weekend release of the transcript to news outlets including The New York Times and The Associated Press. They asked a judge to enforce undisclosed terms of the confidential agreement that settled the former Temple University employee’s sexual-assault lawsuit.
Constand’s lawyer, Dolores Troiani, did not immediately return messages Thursday.
A court reporting service she hired to take Cosby’s deposition said this week that it thought a recent unsealing order included the deposition. A federal judge had unsealed other motions in the case, but the deposition has never been filed in court.
Troiani has likewise accused Cosby’s legal team of violating the confidentiality clause through media comments and denials over the years. Cosby’s lawyers, including Temple University board President Patrick O’Connor, have said the denials referred to other accusers, not Constand.
And this week, new Cosby lawyer Monique Pressley has given television and other news interview defending Cosby and discussing the deposition.
Cosby said in the deposition that he engaged in consensual activities with Constand after giving her three Benadryl pills for stress.
Constand said that she was drugged, rendered semi-conscious and then sexually assaulted.
The depositions are the only time Cosby is known to have responded under oath to claims by more than two dozen women that he drugged them, molested them or made unwanted sexual advances.
Two of the women were 19 at the time. One appeared on his TV show and went to his Manhattan townhome in 2000 for career advice. She said she was given three glasses of wine, then had to rebuff the 60-something Cosby when he dropped his pants. Cosby denied any sexual impropriety with the woman.
In the deposition, Cosby also admitted that he obtained prescriptions for quaaludes in the 1970s in order to give them to women he was pursuing for sex, even as he remained sober. He said all of the women took it knowingly.
The Constand case had stayed largely out of view from 2006 until last year, when comedian Hannibal Buress called out Cosby’s behavior onstage and more accusers came forward.
In their petition Thursday, Cosby’s lawyers also criticize Constand for tweets they say violate the agreement, including one last year in which she said, “I won’t go away, there is a lot more I will say.”
In recent weeks, arts officials in Philadelphia have painted over a fatherhood-themed mural that showed a smiling, sweater-wearing Cosby along with Nelson Mandela, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and other revered men. The mural under a north Philadelphia train bridge had been deteriorating, but its slated removal was moved up amid the new details about Cosby, said Cari Feiler Bender, spokeswoman for the city’s Mural Arts Program.
Copyright © The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
