NORRISTOWN, Pa. (AP) - The Latest on Bill Cosby’s sexual assault retrial (all times local):
5:20 p.m.
Bill Cosby’s lawyers have called two more witnesses as they defend him against sexual assault charges.
John Conrad St. Marthe is a chef who worked for Cosby until June 2003. He said Wednesday he cooked for Cosby’s chief accuser at the comedian’s suburban Philadelphia mansion and never saw any intimate contact between them.
Charles Kipps is a writer who worked with Cosby. He says he met accuser Andrea Constand at Cosby’s New York City home and spoke to her on the phone several times about her sports broadcasting aspirations.
Constand accuses Cosby of drugging and molesting her in 2004. He says it was consensual.
The defense case will resume Thursday.
The Associated Press doesn’t typically identify people who say they’re victims of sexual assault unless they grant permission, which Constand has done.
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3:35 p.m.
A key defense witness says the chief accuser at Bill Cosby’s sexual assault retrial talked about framing a celebrity before going to police with her allegations in 2005.
Marguerite Jackson is testifying Wednesday at Cosby’s retrial in suburban Philadelphia. She says Andrea Constand spoke of the plot while they were rooming together on a road trip to Rhode Island with the Temple University women’s basketball team. Both women worked at Temple.
Jackson says Constand told her she’d been assaulted, then switched gears and said she could fabricate an account to “sue and get that money.”
Constand has accused Cosby of drugging and molesting her in 2004. His lawyers say she made up the story to extort a big civil settlement.
Constand has testified she didn’t “recall ever having a conversation with” Jackson.
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3:20 p.m.
The star defense witness in Bill Cosby’s sexual assault retrial has taken the witness stand.
Marguerite Jackson began testifying Wednesday afternoon at the courthouse in Philadelphia.
Jackson has said Cosby’s chief accuser, Andrea Constand, once spoke of framing a “high-profile person” so she could file a lawsuit.
Constand testified Monday that she did not “recall ever having a conversation with” Jackson and denied a defense claim that she falsely accused Cosby as part of a get-rich scheme.
Cosby is charged with drugging and molesting Constand at his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004. He says she consented to a sexual encounter.
Constand sued Cosby in 2005 after prosecutors decided not to file criminal charges. The case was settled for nearly $3.4 million.
The Associated Press doesn’t typically identify people who say they’re victims of sexual assault unless they grant permission, which Constand has done.
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1:30 p.m.
The star defense witness in Bill Cosby’s sexual assault retrial is getting ready to take the witness stand.
Cosby’s lawyers say Marguerite Jackson will testify Wednesday afternoon.
Jackson says Cosby’s chief accuser, Andrea Constand, once spoke of framing a “high-profile person” so she could file a lawsuit.
Constand testified Monday that she did not “recall ever having a conversation with” Jackson and denied a defense claim that she falsely accused Cosby as part of a get-rich scheme.
Cosby is charged with drugging and molesting Constand at his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004. He says she consented to a sexual encounter.
Constand sued Cosby in 2005 after prosecutors decided not to file criminal charges. The case was settled for nearly $3.4 million.
The Associated Press doesn’t typically identify people who say they’re victims of sexual assault unless they grant permission, which Constand has done.
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11:35 a.m.
A book publisher says model Janice Dickinson told her she was drugged and raped by Bill Cosby and was insistent that the story be included in her 2002 memoir.
Judith Regan told jurors at Cosby’s sexual assault retrial on Wednesday that Dickinson was upset the company’s legal department wouldn’t let them print such an explosive story without a corroborating witness.
Dickinson testified last week that Cosby raped her at a Lake Tahoe, Nevada hotel in 1982, after giving her a pill.
The book contained a highly sanitized version of the encounter, with no sex at all, let alone a rape.
Regan testified that she believed Dickinson’s allegations were credible, but that her account was “modified to deal with this issue without any legal problems.”
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11:10 a.m.
Jurors are hearing Bill Cosby’s deposition testimony about giving quaaludes to women before sex.
Cosby made the damaging admission when he testified in 2005 as part of his chief accuser’s civil lawsuit against him. Prosecutors won the right to introduce it to the jury at his sexual assault retrial. A police detective is reading his testimony to the jury Wednesday.
In the deposition, Cosby says he gave quaaludes, a now-banned sedative that was a popular party drug in the 1970s, to women he wanted to have sex with “the same as a person would say, ’Have a drink.’”
Cosby is charged with drugging and molesting a former Temple University women’s basketball administrator at his suburban Philadelphia home. He says he gave her cold pills and that their sexual encounter was consensual.
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8:45 a.m.
Bill Cosby has arrived at a suburban Philadelphia courthouse for the eighth day of his sexual assault retrial.
As the 80-year-old comedian arrived Wednesday morning, spokesman Andrew Wyatt spoke to reporters and blasted the testimony from a police sergeant and detective at Tuesday’s trial.
He says that prosecutors were using “tools of incompetence to build monuments of nothingness.” Wyatt says Cosby’s defense thinks the case should be dismissed.
A police sergeant testified Tuesday that a suburban Philadelphia prosecutor closed the original 2005 probe hours after investigators met to discuss leads that needed to be followed up.
Jurors heard from a police interview in which Cosby acknowledged fondling his chief accuser’s breasts and genitals after giving her pills.
Jurors could soon hear explosive 2005 testimony about giving quaaludes to women before sex.
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12:55 a.m.
Jurors could soon hear Bill Cosby’s explosive testimony about giving quaaludes to women before sex.
Prosecutors are expected to read a transcript of the 2005 testimony as early as Wednesday.
They’re saving for the very end of their case Cosby’s own words about using the 1970s party drug “the same as a person would say, ’Have a drink.’”
Cosby’s old admissions about quaaludes have taken on new significance at the comedian’s sexual assault retrial in suburban Philadelphia after a half-dozen women testified that he drugged and violated them.
Cosby gave the deposition as part of a lawsuit chief accuser Andrea Constand filed against him. He settled in 2006 for nearly $3.4 million.
The Associated Press doesn’t typically identify people who say they’re victims of sexual assault unless they grant permission, which Constand has done.
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