Bill Cosby departs a pretrial hearing in his sexual assault case at the Montgomery County Courthouse last week. Photo / AP
Bill Cosby departs a pretrial hearing in his sexual assault case at the Montgomery County Courthouse last week. Photo / AP
A judge agreed yesterday to let five additional accusers testify at Bill Cosby's April 2 sexual assault retrial.
Judge Steven O'Neill said prosecutors can choose the witnesses from a group of eight women whose allegations date as far back as 1982. The women include model Janice Dickinson.
An alleged assault in 2004 led to Cosby's only criminal charges. Prosecutors want to show he had a pattern of misconduct over a five-decade span.
At his first trial, which ended in a deadlock, prosecutors had tried to call 13 other accusers to testify. The judge allowed only one to take the stand.
Attorneys for Cosby, who is now 80, have said the women's memories are tainted at best and asked the judge to bar them from testifying.
Constand told police in 2005 that Cosby drugged and sexually assaulted her a year earlier at his suburban Philadelphia estate. The Temple University basketball team manager said he gave her three unlabeled blue pills to "relax" as she discussed a career change.
Accuser Andrea Constand told police in 2005 that Cosby drugged and sexually assaulted her a year earlier. Photo / Getty Images
She said she was semi-conscious when he digitally penetrated her. Cosby, a Temple alumnus, booster and former trustee, is charged with sexually assaulting a person unable to give consent, a felony that could bring 10 years in prison upon conviction. The defense says her story has evolved and there were other times they were sexually intimate. Cosby has pleaded not guilty.
THE OTHERS WHO COULD TESTIFY
JANICE DICKINSON
Ages then: She was 27; he was 45.
Dickinson met Cosby in 1982 and saw him as a trusted friend and mentor as she tried to broaden her career from modeling to music and television. Dickinson said Cosby arranged for her to fly to see him perform in Lake Tahoe and knocked her out with a pill he gave her after she'd complained of stomach pain. She said she woke up in pain and found fluids between her legs.
Model Janice Dickinson leaves a hearing about her defamation lawsuit against Bill Cosby. Photo / AP
She never reported the encounter to authorities and has said she was afraid if she did that her career would be damaged and Cosby would retaliate. Cosby lawyer Martin Singer said in 2014 that Dickinson's allegations were a lie and a "glaring contradiction" to what she wrote in her book and what she'd previously told the media,
JANICE BAKER-KINNEY
Ages then: She was 24; he was 45.
Baker-Kinney, then a Harrah's casino bartender in Reno, Nevada, went to a pizza party at a nearby home where Cosby was staying in 1982. He insisted she take two pills, she said, before the backgammon game they were playing went blurry. She said she recalls seeing her blouse unbuttoned and his pants unzipped before she awoke naked with signs she had been sexually assaulted.
The defense says her story is "nothing like Constand's" because she only met Cosby once, "voluntarily" took quaaludes and apologised for passing out.
Thomas' agent sent the aspiring actress to meet Cosby for career advice at a Harrah's hotel in Reno in 1984, but the limousine he sent instead took her to a private house where she said he gave her a drink so she could play the intoxicated person in a script he gave her. During intermittent bouts of consciousness, she said, she was naked and Cosby forced her to perform oral sex.
The defense says she has given three versions of her story.
Neal worked as a masseuse at a Las Vegas health club where Cosby played tennis in the mid-1980s. He befriended her mother and aunt there, leading her to accept an invitation to his show at the Las Vegas Hilton and dinner afterward.
Cosby urged her to drink the alcoholic beverage set in front of her while he ate.
Rebecca Neal speaks during a news conference. Photo / AP
She said he later raped her in his room while she was too disoriented to give consent. The defense says she knew him only for a few months, unlike Constand, and has said a waiter served the shot of vodka.
UNIDENTIFIED ACCUSER 4
Ages then: She was 21; he was 48.
She was a flight attendant and aspiring model when she met Cosby in 1986. After several months of friendship, including a chance to be an extra on Cosby's television show, he invited her to dinner and then to his room at the Drake Hotel in Chicago.
There, she said, he gave a glass of Champagne laced with an intoxicant that left her unable to ward off his sexual advances before she passed out.
CHELAN LASHA
Ages then: She was 17; he was 48.
The model and aspiring actress met and befriended Cosby in 1986. Lasha said he invited her to his Las Vegas hotel room to introduce her to a modeling agency representative and gave her a pill he described as an antihistamine and a double shot of almond liqueur to help fight a cold.
At Cosby's behest, Lasha said, she changed into a robe, wet her hair and posed for a few modeling shots. She said Cosby then directed her to the bed, where he pinched her nipple and humped her leg as she lay immobilized and unable to speak. She says she woke up naked.
Lublin was an aspiring actress when she met Cosby in 1989. She and her mother went for a run with Cosby, and he gave them show tickets before he invited her to the Elvis suite of the Las Vegas Hilton to practice acting improvisation.
He prodded her to take two drinks to relax, which she ultimately did. She said she recalls seeing Cosby stroking her hair and walking down a hall before she woke up at home two days later. She said she believes she was sexually assaulted. The defense says Lublin assumes she is a victim based on other media accounts but can only remember Cosby stroking her hair.
KELLY JOHNSON
Ages then: She was 34; he was 58.
Johnson was the only other accuser allowed to testify at Cosby's first trial. She worked for Cosby's agent and knew the entertainer for six years when he invited her to lunch at his bungalow at the Bel Air Hotel in Los Angeles in 1996 to discuss her acting ambitions. She testified that Cosby was in a robe and slippers when she arrived and that he offered her wine and pressured her to take a large white pill that knocked her out. When she woke up, she said, her dress was disheveled and her breasts were exposed.
Johnson said Cosby put lotion on her hand and forced her to touch his genitals. Johnson had corroborating evidence in the form of a 1996 workers' compensation claim. Cosby's lawyers argued Johnson was seeking a payout. At the first trial, a defense lawyer noted that she mixed up the years and other details of her encounters with Cosby and grilled her about why she never said anything when she left her job.
