Bill Cosby has admitted to getting prescription Quaaludes to try to drug women he wanted to have sex with, newly released documents show.
The documents, dating back to 2005, stem from a civil lawsuit filed by Andrea Constand — one of the dozens of women who have publicly accused the comedian of sexual assault. The records were made public Monday after The Associated Press went to court to compel their release.
In a sworn deposition, Cosby answered questions from Constand’s attorney, Dolores Troiani.
“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?”Troiani asked.
“Yes,” Cosby replied.
“Did you ever give any of those young women the Quaaludes without their knowledge?” Troiani asked.
Cosby’s attorney objected and told him not to answer the question.
While Cosby admitted that he acquired seven prescriptions of Quaaludes with the intent to give the sedatives to young women he wanted to have sex with, Cosby has not admitted to actually drugging any of his accusers.
He did say he gave drugs to “other people,” but his lawyers objected before Cosby could respond and name who he gave them to.
According to the Associated Press, at least two of the woman admitted they willingly took drugs given to them by Cosby.
‘The truth has come out’
More than 25 women have publicly accused Cosby of raping or assaulting them over the past 40 years. The comedian has never been criminally charged and has vehemently denied wrongdoing.
Efforts to contact his attorney for comment Monday were unsuccessful.
Several women who have accused Cosby of rape or sexual assault told CNN they felt vindicated by the newly released information.
“It’s huge. I’ve worked so long and hard to tell my story and screamed my story on to deaf ears,” said Barbara Bowman, who said Cosby assaulted her numerous times beginning in the late 1980s.
“It was like everything turned a 180 in a matter of a minute.”
Joan Tarshis, who said Cosby raped her when she was 19, said she “never thought this day would happen.”
“First of all, I kept it a secret because I was afraid to talk about it, because of Mr. Cosby’s power. Then, when we came out, and lots of other women started to come out, we were called liars,” she said.
“And now that the truth has come out — that he has bought drugs in order to drug women to have sex with him — I’m just so relieved that the truth has come out.”
The Temple connection
Constand, whose civil lawsuit spawned the deposition, was a staffer for the women’s basketball team at Temple University — Cosby’s alma mater — when she was visiting Cosby’s Pennsylvania home in 2004.
According to Constand, Cosby gave her medication that made her dizzy. She said she later woke up to find her bra undone and her clothes in disarray.
Cosby eventually settled the legal suit, which claimed that 13 “Jane Does” had similar stories of sexual abuse.
Nearly a decade later, after 17 women publicly accused the comedian of sexual misconduct, Cosby resigned from Temple’s board of Trustees — a post he held for 32 years.
The Vegas incident
The documents include Cosby’s recollection of an incident in Las Vegas in the 1970s.
“She meets me backstage. I give her Quaaludes. We then have sex,” he said.
While the woman’s name was redacted, the details of the encounter closely mirror those provided by one of Cosby’s accusers, Therese Serignese.
An attorney who represents three Cosby accusers, including Serignese, told “CNN Tonight” that “it appears” Cosby was talking about Serignese, although Joseph Cammarata stopped short of saying for sure.
Previously, Serignese had told ABC’s “20/20” that she was a 19-year-old model visiting Las Vegas when Cosby handed her pills in a private dressing room after a performance.
“Take these,” Cosby told her, according to Serignese.
After consuming the pills, she remembered “feeling drugged, and I was kind of leaning forward, and he was behind me having sex with me. And I — I remember it because it was not good.”
Serignese did not make public accusations in the immediate aftermath of the 1976 incident. She explained her decision in a November 2014 article she wrote in the New York Daily News.
“Cosby was everywhere. Everyone thought he was a great family man. I knew he wasn’t. I just couldn’t prove it with anything but my word. There was no video camera or DNA evidence. No one else had accused him publicly yet,” Serignese wrote.
She added: “He didn’t drink or take the pills. They could test him, and he’d be clean.”
Too late to prosecute
Cosby, 77, had fought the release of the documents, arguing it would violate his and others’ privacy and be a source of embarrassment.
One of his accusers, Patti Masten, said many more women have messaged her privately with similar accusations.
“We’re up to 48 accusers. There are many who have not come forward,” she said.
But in most of the cases, the statute of limitations has passed, preventing prosecution.
Nonetheless, Bowman said the new revelation is a “game-changer.”
“I think we’re going to be heard now. And I think this is just the beginning.”
