Consent, Wine and Pills Will Be Key Questions in the Bill Cosby Case
- 8 years ago
Entertainer Bill Cosby has long maintained that his extramarital conquests over the years were all consensual.
A jury may ultimately decide if that’s true after the 78-year-old actor was arrested Wednesday on felony assault charges in suburban Philadelphia stemming from a 2004 encounter with a former Temple University employee less than half his age.
The case marks the first time Cosby has been charged with sexual misconduct despite years of lurid allegations, and it sets the stage for perhaps the biggest Hollywood celebrity trial of the mobile-news era.
Prosecutors armed with new evidence this year believe his accuser, Andrea Constand, was too impaired by the pills and wine Cosby gave her to consent to the sexual activity that followed at his home.
Cosby gave a deposition after the woman sued him in 2005.
He said she never told him to stop.
But police now say that’s because she was “frozen,” ”paralyzed,” and “in and out of consciousness.”
A jury may ultimately decide if that’s true after the 78-year-old actor was arrested Wednesday on felony assault charges in suburban Philadelphia stemming from a 2004 encounter with a former Temple University employee less than half his age.
The case marks the first time Cosby has been charged with sexual misconduct despite years of lurid allegations, and it sets the stage for perhaps the biggest Hollywood celebrity trial of the mobile-news era.
Prosecutors armed with new evidence this year believe his accuser, Andrea Constand, was too impaired by the pills and wine Cosby gave her to consent to the sexual activity that followed at his home.
Cosby gave a deposition after the woman sued him in 2005.
He said she never told him to stop.
But police now say that’s because she was “frozen,” ”paralyzed,” and “in and out of consciousness.”