Bill Cosby appeared in Pennsylvania court Tuesday morning for a key hearing in his criminal sex-assault case.
The preliminary hearing will determine whether prosecutors have enough evidence to send the 78-year-old entertainer to trial.
Cosby is accused of drugging and molesting former Temple University employee Andrea Constand at his suburban Philadelphia mansion in 2004. Prosecutors said Constand was not only impaired, but unconscious after Cosby gave her three unidentified blue pills. Cosby said they engaged in consensual sexual activities, and that he was a friend and mentor to her.
Prosecutors reopened the criminal case last year after dozens of women raised similar claims, and Cosby’s deposition in Constand’s lawsuit surfaced.{loadposition myposition}
Constand had gone to him for career advice. Cosby said he gave her the pills to address her stress.
He settled her lawsuit for an undisclosed sum in 2006, after giving four days of testimony about his extramarital affairs, his pursuit of quaaludes to seduce women and his efforts to hide payments to former lovers from his wife.
The confidential settlement bound both sides to secrecy, but a federal judge last year unsealed portions of Cosby’s deposition on a petition from The Associated Press. The full deposition was later released by a court reporting service.
Montgomery County prosecutors then reopened Constand’s decade-old complaint last summer, after realizing the 12-year window for felony sexual assault had not yet run out.
Cosby has not entered a plea since his Dec. 30 arrest. He would do so at a formal arraignment if the case is held for trial. He is being held on $1 million bail.
