NORRISTOWN, Pa. _ Bill Cosby's lawyers turned to an old argument hoping for a different result Tuesday, urging a judge to bar prosecutors from using the 79-year-old entertainer's own words against him at his trial on sexual assault charges.
At a hearing in Norristown, defense lawyer Brian J. McMonagle said it would be unfair to allow jurors to read a deposition Cosby gave in a 2005 civil suit _ in which he discussed using drugs and alcohol in past sexual encounters with women _ because Cosby only agreed to testify back then after getting a promise he would never be prosecuted for what he said.
"You give your word, you've got to keep it," McMonagle said.
The argument kicked off the first of four hearings Montgomery County Judge Steven T. O'Neill has scheduled to determine what evidence prosecutors will be allowed to use at Cosby's June trial on charges he drugged and sexually assaulted former Temple University employee Andrea Constand in 2004.
The judge did not immediately issue a ruling on the deposition Tuesday, but seemed skeptical of the defense's argument.
Earlier this year, O'Neill rejected a bid from Cosby to have his case dismissed based, in part, on that same purported pledge _ a 2005 oral agreement from then-District Attorney Bruce L. Castor Jr. that he would never prosecute Cosby on Constand's allegations if the comedian would sit for a deposition in her civil lawsuit.
O'Neill, who said Tuesday he had not yet seen a transcript of that testimony, noted that Cosby may have agreed to testify with or without Castor's alleged promise. Jurors in civil cases are allowed to weigh a defendant's choice to plead their Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination.
Prosecutors maintained _ as they did in February _ that no-such agreement existed and attacked Castor's credibility as a witness able to vouch for it.
"He spent a great deal of time, attempting to assassinate this case," Assistant District Attorney M. Stewart Ryan said, referring to Castor's testimony as a witness for Cosby at an earlier hearing.
Later Tuesday, the lawyers are set to take up other arguments, including claims from Cosby's defense team that the case is too old and their client too blind and infirm to prosecute.
Prosecutors also hope to convince a judge to allow trial testimony from 13 other women who say they, too, were drugged and assaulted by the entertainer in sexual encounters dating back decades.
Cosby, 79, remains free on a $1 million bond. He is charged with three counts of aggravated indecent assault.
