July 23--"The stark contrast between Bill Cosby, the public moralist, and Bill Cosby, the subject of serious allegations concerning improper (and perhaps criminal) conduct, is a matter to which the AP -- and by extension the public -- has a significant interest."
-- U.S. District Judge Eduardo Robreno of Philadelphia, citing Cosby's moralizing as a reason he released previously sealed records from a 2005 civil lawsuit
The list of women who claim assault or inappropriate advances by entertainer Bill Cosby has grown to more than 40 names. No. 39 is Chloe Goins, a model who is pursuing criminal charges against Cosby in Los Angeles. Her case may be the only one that falls within a statute of limitations for prosecution, although the LAPD said earlier this month it might look at other allegations from the past.
Goins claims Cosby spiked her drink at a Playboy Mansion party in 2008. She awoke naked in a bed with him nibbling her toes, she alleges.
Cosby has denied all accusations and is charged with no crimes. He claims a witch hunt. He has blamed the media.
The now 78-year-old superstar has been married to the same woman, Camille, since 1964. The first drugging episode allegedly occurred a year later: Kristina Ruehli, now a grandmother, says that in 1965, when she was a 22-year-old secretary, Cosby offered her a cocktail. She passed out. When she came to, he was attempting to force her to provide oral sex.
The accounts of these women -- one age 15 when she allegedly was victimized -- share a common theme. The women say they were charmed and mentored and pressured -- and in some cases, violently attacked and raped -- after being drugged by one of the entertainment world's renowned good guys. These allegations evoke the once unimaginable: Dr. Huxtable, serial rapist.
The accusations highlight that rape does not always involve a stranger, a dark alley, a weapon, a bad neighborhood or even a college dorm room.
We knew that, of course, but the accusations about Cosby's brazen behavior, by so many women over the span of at least 43 years, with no criminal charges, leave a sense that justice has so far been denied. Cosby has dismissed the women's stories and has counted on a fair number of prominent people who have defended him.
Now comes new evidence: Cosby's own words in the case of Andrea Constand. He can't dismiss his own words. And there's no defending the ugly pattern those words impute.
Constand said she met Cosby in 2002 when she was director of operations for Temple University's women's basketball team. Cosby offered to be a mentor to her. She claims that in 2004, he gave her pills that he said would ease her anxiety. Then he groped and molested her.
She filed criminal charges in Pennsylvania in 2005, but the local district attorney declined to prosecute. She then sought civil damages, and Cosby was deposed. Constand and Cosby eventually settled out of court, and until now his deposition has remained sealed. The records that The Associated Press sought, along with a full transcript of Cosby's deposition obtained by The New York Times, suggest a pattern similar to what dozens of other women have alleged: that Cosby drugged and sexually assaulted them.
Their stories are beyond disturbing. A then-19-year-old comedy writer claims Cosby raped her in 1969 after drugging her. Dozens of women say that, in the 1970s and 1980s, they awoke to him pulling down their pants or grabbing their breasts or climbing on top of them. In many of the cases, the women say, they were too incapacitated to stop him. And too embarrassed to tell.
Cosby, in the 2005 deposition, seemed nonchalant about his sexual endeavors. From a New York Times story published July 18: "He talked of the 19-year-old aspiring model who sent him her poem and ended up on his sofa, where, Mr. Cosby said, she pleasured him with lotion. He spoke with casual disregard about ending a relationship with another model so he could pursue other women. ... He suggested he was skilled in picking up the nonverbal cues that signal a woman's consent."
In the deposition, he admitted getting prescriptions for quaaludes, a common party drug in the 1970s, and offering pills to women, "the same as a person would say, 'Have a drink.' "
Some of his accusers say they swallowed pills because he told them they were anti-anxiety medication. Others accuse Cosby of slipping the medication in their cocktails or their coffee.
Now, it appears, Cosby will have to speak to this again. On Wednesday, the California Supreme Court cleared the way for attorneys to take a new deposition from him, in a lawsuit filed last year by Judith Huth, who alleges that in 1974, when she was 15, Cosby gave her alcohol and sexually assaulted her at the Playboy Mansion. Cosby has filed a countersuit accusing Huth of extortion.
Through many years, Cosby used his prestige as a bully pulpit to condemn kids who wore saggy pants and parents who let them. Criminals who stole. Gangbangers who shot. Girls who wore short skirts.
Cosby, the moralizer. And, by many accounts, the predator.
Years passed. Now his words echo.
