Sex crime defendants routinely resort to the cliché, “he said, she said,” and Bill Cosby is no exception; the phrase was mentioned more than once Monday (June 5) by his lawyers during the first day of the actor’s trail on charges of sexual assault. It’s not a bad defense, on the face of it. Sexual relationships, shading as they do into matters of the heart, are apt to seethe with confusion, drama and emotion; the truth about what happens between dissenting lovers in private is consequently hard to determine, and harder to litigate.
But persuading a person to ingest a “harmless” intoxicant is another thing altogether, even when the ultimate goal is sex — though that too is in question, if one’s “sex partner” is meant to be literally unconscious and unresponsive during the act, that is, not a “partner” in the strict sense of the word. Giving someone a drink of wine, an “herbal remedy,” a tab of Benadryl meant as a sleeping aid — when really the contents of the wine or the pill are not as advertised — is a different thing all together.
Kelly Johnson is 24 years younger than Cosby, 79, and Andrea Constand is 37 years younger. Both have said repeatedly that they trusted and admired Cosby. Now he claims that his “relationships” with them were “romantic” and consensual.
On Monday Cosby lawyer Brian McMonagle described a “flawed” client. “Some of you see a brilliant comedian… some of you see a flawed husband whose infidelity has made him vulnerable,” he told the jury. But through his own admission, Cosby was an unrepentant serial adulterer: His infidelity was rampant, and accomplished at times with the aid of Quaaludes given to “consenting women” back when it was “fashionable,” according to McMonagle. (Under oath [during the 2005 deposition], Cosby said, ‘I used Quaaludes three decades ago when it was fashionable to do so with consenting women.’”)
Read the full article, which originally appeared on Death and Taxes, here.
