Inside the Courtroom for the Bill Cosby Sexual Assault Trial
Sex, drugs, and a former supermodel took center stage during Day 4 of the retrial of comedian Bill Cosby.
The comedian is on trial for three counts of aggravated indecent assault stemming from a 2004 incident with former Temple University employee Andrea Constand.
Cosby is a former Temple trustee.
Prosecutors have been allowed to call five witnesses who said they were drugged and raped by Cosby decades ago.
Each of the witnesses, however, presented much baggage for the district attorney to overcome.
Janice Dickinson, one of the five women who have previously told their stories on cable and network television, told jurors she was raped by Cosby in 1982.
She said he was known as “America’s Dad,” although that distinction didn’t come until after the NBC hit, “The Cosby Show,” took off in 1984.
She claimed Cosby called her while she was with her boyfriend at a photo shoot overseas and sent for her to join him in Reno. Dickinson said while having dinner at a hotel restaurant with Cosby and his music director, she felt woozy and “out of it.”
Dickinson said she followed Cosby to his room and, although she felt drugged at dinner, she proceeded to take several photographs of Cosby as he sat at a desk on a telephone and she got comfortable on the bed.
During cross examination, Cosby’s attorney Tom Mesereau asked her why she didn’t include the alleged incident in her book. Dickinson said publisher Judith Regan and ghostwriter Pablo Fenjves took “poetic license” and wrote what they thought would sell. The duo of Regan and Fenjves also collaborated with O.J. Simpson on the infamous and unpublished book, “If I Did it.”
Mesereau alleged that Dickinson “lied to make money.”
Another alleged victim, Janice Baker-Kinney said a friend took her to a pizza party given by Cosby in Nevada and she discovered that her friend and Cosby were the only ones at the home for the get together.
Baker-Kinney said Cosby had given her a Quaalude pill, which she readily accepted because she “felt it would be a mood-enhancer,” she said.
Prior to meeting Cosby, Baker-Kinney had been to at least one other party where she took a Quaalude.
“Who gave you the Quaaludes? Mesereau asked. “Bill Cosby,” Baker-Kinney said.
Mesereau replied: “No, who gave you the Quaaludes? You said you took a Quaalude before the party. Who gave you the Quaaludes?”
To which Baker-Kinney said, “a friend.” Mesereau also got her to admit she had used cocaine and other drugs at various points throughout her life.
The jury also heard from Heidi Thomas and Chelan Lasha.
A client of noted attorney Gloria Allred, Lasha once appeared at a press conference where Allred demanded Cosby pay $100 million to her clients.
Allred, who represents many of the women who have claimed that Cosby assaulted them and whose daughter, Lisa Bloom, represents Dickinson, were both in the courtroom.
Allred told NNPA Newswire on Thursday that she withdrew the $100 million demand after Cosby was criminally charged.
Though she has a long rap sheet that includes lying to police and prostitution, mention of Lasha’s criminal history was limited by O’Neill to just a recent conviction of making a false statement.
While Cosby’s spokesman Andrew Wyatt and his spokeswoman Ebonee Benson stood by as Allred and Bloom completed a press conference on Thursday, the two began their own presser only to be interrupted by the mother-daughter tandem.
“This is prosecution by distraction,” Wyatt said.
Benson said that the extra witnesses that the prosecutors have brought are nothing more than a distraction and they have nothing to do with the case at all.
“We are here to try the case about Andrea Constand, not all of these other women and when the jurors issue their verdict on this case, we feel it will be as it should be, not guilty,” Benson said.
Wyatt called Allred “Awful Red,” and Bloom, “Blasphemous.”
“These women get on the stand as part of Allred’s con,” Wyatt said. “This is a classic example of a con happening.”
Prosecutors had no comment while Allred said she believed Cosby and his team are “avoiding the issue.”