NORRISTOWN, Pa. (CN) – Having a police detective read Bill Cosby’s sworn statement to the court, prosecutors worked Friday morning to show that the comedian knew he had crossed the line.
“My God, I'm in trouble," Cosby had said in 2005, giving deposition testimony in a civil case with Andrea Constand, the woman he was charged a decade later with assaulting.
"I thought, this is a dirty old man with a young girl,” Cosby continued, his statements being read aloud to the court by Detective James Reape.
Montgomery County prosecutors first called the major-crimes detective to the stand Thursday afternoon to introduce Cosby’s once-sealed deposition testimony.
Constand had brought a civil case against Cosby in 2005 after the prosecutors in charge at the time declined to take her allegations to trial. Just as the statute of limitations for her claims was about to run out, however, renewed interest in Cosby’s accusers allowed the county to reopen her case.
It was the release of Cosby’s incriminating 2005 deposition testimony that quickly prompted his arrest.
Kicking off Day 5 of Cosby’s trial this morning, District Attorney Kevin Steele walked Detective Reape through the portion of Cosby’s deposition where he talks about being confronted on the phone by Constand’s mother.
“I apologized,” Cosby had said, his words also being projected for the courtroom on a large screen. “I said it was digital penetration.”
Cosby testified at the time that he was worried about his public image. It was in his "best interest for the public to believe that Andrea consented,” Cosby added.
Constand insists, however, that she was incapable of consenting, and that Cosby ensured this by plying her with Benadryl that he misrepresented as an herbal remedy.
When she confronted Cosby on the phone, Gianna Constand, the accuser’s mother, had demanded to know what kind of pills Cosby had used. As she testified earlier in the trial, Cosby offered to write the name of the pills on a piece of paper and mail it to the Constands.
Cosby admitted in his deposition testimony why that never happened. “I'm not sending anything over the mail, and I'm not giving away anything,” he had said.
Later in the deposition, Cosby talked about how he knew the phone conversation wasn’t just with his accuser’s mother, that Andrea Constand was also on the line.
“Tell your mother you were awake, tell your mother about the orgasm, tell you mother we talked,” he said he had wanted to plead.
These were not the words Cosby used, however. “I’m not going to argue with someone's mother who is accusing me of something,” he explained in his deposition.