The judge presiding over Bill Cosby's sexual-assault trial has scheduled four days of hearings to determine whether jurors should hear the entertainer's admissions about his sexual past, and testimony from 13 women who say he drugged and assaulted them in encounters stretching back decades.
Montgomery County, Pa., Judge Steven T. O'Neill set aside Nov. 1 and 2 and Dec. 13 and 14 to consider what evidence should be allowed at Cosby's June trial on charges that he sexually assaulted Andrea Constand in 2004.
Prosecutors want to call the other women to bolster Constand's claims by showing that Cosby's alleged sexual misconduct with her followed a pattern.
O'Neill's order didn't specify whether he will require the other women to testify in the pretrial hearings, just that he will consider whether their potential value as prosecution witnesses outweighs the damage their unproven allegations could cause Cosby's defense.
Cosby's lawyers have also urged the judge to block prosecutors from showing jurors excerpts from a 2005 deposition Cosby gave in a civil suit that that Constand filed against him. In the transcript, Cosby acknowledges a series of sexual encounters he had with women after giving them drugs and alcohol.
Cosby's lawyers maintain that he agreed to sit for that deposition only after being promised by a district attorney that he would never be prosecuted based on Constand's allegations and that his words would never be used against him in criminal proceedings.
That promise, they said in court filings last week, was ignored when prosecutors filed new charges against Cosby in December based on Constand's 11-year-old claims.
The defense has also urged the court to reconsider its decision to allow the case to proceed, arguing that Cosby and the allegations against him are too old to mount a proper defense.
Cosby is charged with three counts of aggravated indecent assault tied to allegations he drugged and assaulted Constand during her 2004 visit to his Cheltenham mansion. He has admitted to a sexual liaison with Constand, but maintains the encounter was consensual.
