Cosby said he got drugs to give women for sex

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Bill Cosby admitted in a 2005 court deposition that he obtained quaaludes with the intent of giving them to young women he wanted to have sex with. He also admitted giving the sedative to at least one woman.

The Associated Press went to court to compel the release of the documents — part of a lawsuit he settled — and they were made public Monday.

Cosby's lawyers had fought the release of the documents on the grounds that it would embarrass their client.

The revelation has the potential to do more than that. Cosby has been accused of drugging and raping scores of women in episodes dating back to the late 1960s.

This is the first time he's on the record admitting to the use of drugs to obtain sex.

He has denied all wrongdoing and has never been charged with a crime. The statute of limitations has expired in almost all the cases.

But he was sued in 2005 by a former Temple University employee, Andrea Constand, who accused him of sexually assaulting her in his home in Philadelphia in 2004. The 77-year-old comedian testified under oath in connection with that lawsuit that he gave his accuser three half-pills of Benadryl.

The lawsuit was settled for undisclosed terms in 2006, but it is known that more than a dozen women were ready to testify against him. They never got the chance to do so after the suit was settled.

The AP has been trying to see the court documents in the case ever since.

In his ruling Monday, according to the Hollywood Reporter, U.S. District Judge Eduardo Robreno said Cosby "has donned the mantle of public moralist and mounted the proverbial electronic or print soap box to volunteer his views on, among other things, childrearing, family life, education, and crime.

"To the extent that (Cosby) has freely entered the public square and 'thrust himself into the vortex of th(ese) public issue(s),' he has voluntarily narrowed the zone of privacy that he is entitled to claim."

Meanwhile, more than two dozen more women have come forward publicly since last fall to accuse him of sexually assaulting them. Some believe they were also drugged.

Cosby's lawyers in the Philadelphia case did not immediately return phone calls.

Although Constand, the director of the women's basketball program at Temple, has been repeatedly invoked by other Cosby accusers, some of whom said they were inspired to step forward by her example, she herself has never said anything since her lawsuit was settled, apparently because it was a condition of the settlement.

Cosby, giving sworn testimony in the lawsuit, said he got seven quaalude prescriptions in the 1970s. The lawyer for Constand asked if he had kept the sedatives through the 1990s — after they were banned — but was frustrated by objections from Cosby's lawyer.

"When you got the quaaludes, was it in your mind that you were going to use these quaaludes for young women that you wanted to have sex with?" lawyer Dolores M. Troiani asked.

"Yes," Cosby answered on Sept. 29, 2005.

"Did you ever give any of these young women the quaaludes without their knowledge?"

Cosby's lawyer again objected, leading Troiani to petition the federal judge to force Cosby to cooperate.

Cosby later said he gave Constand three half-pills of Benadryl, although Troiani in the documents voices doubt that was the drug involved. Two other women who testified on Constand's behalf said they had knowingly been given quaaludes.

Three of the women accusing Cosby of sexually assaulting them have a defamation lawsuit pending against him in Massachusetts. They allege that he defamed them when his agents said their accusations were untrue. Cosby is trying to get their case thrown out before discovery.

Cosby had fought the AP's efforts to unseal the testimony in the settled lawsuit, with his lawyer arguing the deposition could reveal details of Cosby's marriage, sex life and prescription drug use.

"It would be terribly embarrassing for this material to come out," lawyer George M. Gowen III argued in June. He said the public should not have access to what Cosby was forced to say as he answered questions under oath from the accuser's lawyer nearly a decade ago.

"Frankly ... it would embarrass him, (and) it would also prejudice him in eyes of the jury pool in Massachusetts," Gowen said.

U.S. District Judge Eduardo Robreno asked last month why Cosby was fighting the release of his sworn testimony, given that the accusations in the Constand lawsuit were already in the public eye.

"Why would he be embarrassed by his own version of the facts?" Robreno said.