NORRISTOWN, Pa. — A woman who accuses Bill Cosby of drugging and violating her more than a decade ago stood by her story at his sex-crimes trial Wednesday, withstanding hours of often ponderous cross-examination that didn’t produce the stumbles the TV star might have hoped for.
Calm and composed, Andrea Constand brushed off suggestions she and Cosby had a romantic relationship before the 2004 encounter at his suburban Philadelphia home.
And she explained away the numerous phone calls she made to him afterward by saying she was merely returning Cosby’s messages about the women’s basketball squad at Temple University, where he was a powerful member of the board of trustees and she was director of team operations.
Constand, 44, left the witness stand after some seven hours of testimony over two days, during which she told the jury that the comedian gave her three blue pills and then penetrated her with his fingers as she lay paralyzed on a couch, unable to tell him to stop.
Constand’s mother followed her on the stand and bolstered her account. Gianna Constand told the jury that she was distraught to learn what Cosby had done to her daughter.
“They were good friends. She viewed him like a father. He is 10 years older than even her own father,” the mother testified, breaking down on the stand.
Gianna Constand said she confronted Cosby by phone during a two-hour call in which she said he “surrendered” to her about the sexual encounter and told her he “was sick.”
After that conversation, she said, she bought a recording device in hopes that Cosby would again confess to harming her daughter. But she said he kept their next conversation short.
Prosecutors played a recording of the call, in which Cosby offered to pay for Constand’s education.
“She could go to school,” he said. “If she wanted to do that, then I would be willing to … pay for the schooling.”
Cosby is charged with aggravated indecent assault. The 79-year-old comedian once dubbed America’s Dad could spend his life in prison if convicted.
Cosby’s lawyers have argued that the sexual encounter with Constand was consensual and have cited phone records showing she called the TV star 53 times afterward, including one call that lasted 20 minutes.
But Constand said she was returning calls Cosby made to her university-issued cellphone about the basketball team.
“She continued to do her job,” Constand’s lawyer, Dolores Troiani, said outside court. “This man was a trustee at Temple. Of course she was calling him back.”
