NORRISTOWN, Pa. _ As the first of Bill Cosby's accusers to speak against him at his retrial Wednesday concluded her testimony, she made her opinion about the case known.
"I want to see a serial rapist convicted," Heidi Thomas stated emphatically at the end of cross examination from one of Cosby's lawyers.
As Cosby lawyer Kathleen Bliss continued questioning her motivation for testifying, Judge Steven T. O'Neill promptly dismissed Thomas from the witness stand and instructed the jury that the questions and some of Thomas' answers could not be considered evidence in the case.
Thomas, 58, a music teacher from Colorado, spent nearly three hours on the witness stand over two days this week, testifying about a 1984 trip to Reno, Nev., where she says Cosby drugged and assaulted her during an acting lesson.
She publicly aired her accusations against him three decades later, in January 2015, as other women were sharing their own accusations.
"I hadn't told anybody anything," she testified Wednesday. "And when I determined that these women were not being believed I wanted to support them."
Thomas is the first of five women who will testify against the 80-year-old entertainer in addition to Andrea Constand at his retrial on sexual-assault charges.
Bliss questioned Thomas on the results of going public with her allegations, asking, "Since you came out, you've had a lot of attention, wouldn't you agree with me?"
"I'm sure that's what many people would say," said Thomas, who insisted that she did not earn money from sharing her story and giving an interview.
She also later sent a Facebook message to Constand, the central accuser in Cosby's trial, telling her that she had her back.
Asked about that message Wednesday, Thomas said, "I never would have believed I would be here."
Thomas also testified about flying to St. Louis in 1984 � for acting lessons � with hopes of asking Cosby questions about what had gone wrong on the night of the alleged assault in Reno.
The closest she got to speaking with him directly, she testified, was posing for a quick photo with Cosby after eating dinner with him and a group of his friends after a show.
"I did not get any answers," she said.
Bliss questioned why Thomas kept that photo she took with Cosby, along with other photos, postcards, and plane tickets from her trips to Reno and St. Louis, for so many years in a scrapbook.
"It was a part of my journey," Thomas said.
When another of the five additional women testifies, Judge Steven T. O'Neill ruled Wednesday morning, Cosby's lawyers can question her about her guilty plea to making a false statement police in 2007. No details about the circumstances of the false statement, made my Chelan Lasha, were revealed in court filings.
