Cosby jurors hear his worry about being seen as ‘dirty old man’

NORRISTOWN, Pa. – A Montgomery County detective finished presenting excerpts of Bill Cosby’s lurid 2005 deposition testimony to jurors Friday, but one portion was notably absent: the 79-year-old entertainer’s statements that he used to get Quaaludes, a powerful sedative, to use in sexual encounters with women.

The question of whether jurors would be allowed to hear that decade-old admission fueled one of the most hotly contested pretrial evidentiary fights in the case. In April, Judge Steven T. O’Neill had cleared the way for prosecutors to present it.

But as he left the witness stand after reading Cosby’s own words back to the panel of seven men and five women, Montgomery County Detective James Reape had made no mention of the once-popular ’70s party drug.

It was not immediately clear whether prosecutors might try to introduce Cosby’s prior Quaalude testimony at another point in the trial. Though it seemed unlikely Friday morning; Reape had been the primary witness enlisted to recite Cosby’s deposition for jurors.

Still, the question lingered as prosecutors barreled toward the conclusion of their case – one that O’Neill said was on track to conclude Friday.

Reape on Thursday read back Cosby’s own account of his 2004 sexual encounter with the case’s central accuser Andrea Constand, who testified earlier in the week that the entertainer drugged and assaulted her.

On Friday, jurors heard how Cosby had grown increasingly concerned that he was being perceived as a “dirty old man” when Constand’s mother called him in 2005 to confront him in a conversation she was secretly recording.

“I apologized to this woman,” he said in a deposition taken for a lawsuit Constand had filed against him, and read aloud in court by the detective. “But my apology was, my God, I’m in trouble with these people because this is an old man and their young daughter.”

Cosby’s testimony also showed he worried that his career could take a financial hit if Constand’s allegations became public. He was unaware at the time that Constand had gone to police with her sexual assault allegations just days before the recorded conversation.

Prosecutors have cited the 2015 ruling by a federal judge in Philadelphia to unseal excerpts of that deposition as an impetus in their decision to reopen the Constand investigation after a decade.

Charged with three counts of aggravated indecent assault, Cosby could face more than a decade in prison if convicted.

The trial continues Friday afternoon.