The unsealed deposition from a 2005 case against Bill Cosby is a spectacularly revealing document. Cosby admits to doping women in order to have sex with them. He admits to a variety of sexual affairs. (The Associated Press first scooped the unsealing of the deposition and its contents.)
In the 2005 deposition Cosby reads a statement from a woman who was 19 years old, in 1976. (Cosby was 41.) He reads it in his own words and doesn’t disagree with it: “She meets me back stage. I give her Quaaludes. We then have sex.” He adds: “I do not — I can’t judge at this time what she knows about herself for 19 years, a passive personality.”
The 19 year old woman is Therese Picking, now Serignese. Therese was one of the “Jane Does” who supported the case brought by Andrea Constand, Cosby’s original accuser and a former Temple University employer. Picking-Serignese said that Cosby picked her up in Las Vegas in 1976, drugged her with Quaaludes, and had non consensual sex with her. When Picking-Serignese came out with her story last fall, she was not taken seriously by Cosby or his attorney. Her original claims can be read in People. But the 2005 deposition from Cosby validates her story.
Cosby initially agrees in the deposition that he was planning to give Quaaludes to “women” plural. Then he says– after coaching from his lawyer– he misunderstood– it was just Therese Serignese.
Here’s the simple question and answer. Dolores Troiani, representing Constand, asks the question. Cosby answers it:
Q. When you got the Quaaludes, was it in your mind that
you were going to use these Quaaludes for young women that you
wanted to have sex with?
A. Yes.
Cosby is also questioned about how he drugged Constand, who brought the case against him. This is how he does it. Here is Bill Cosby describing how he will use a drug– in this case, he says, Benadryl– to knock out a woman in order to have sex with her without her consent:
Q. So, you broke one pill in half. Where are the three?
If you have one half and one whole one, that’s two. Are you
saying you broke the whole one so you had three halves?
A. Yes.
Q. Why would you break the whole pill in half and give
her both halves?
A. Because they’re long.
The deposition also concerns how Cosby gave the National Enquirer an interview in exchange for them keeping quiet about his relationship with Beth Ferrier. In 2006, Ferrier went public with what she claimed was a years-long affair in the 1980s with Cosby, who she said drugged her.
The actual 2005 deposition is wild. Cosby’s attorney turned the proceedings into a circus while Andrea Constand’s lawyer Dolores Troiani tried to question the comedian seriously. Cosby’s lawyer eventually stopped the deposition but the damage had been done.
Now there is no doubt that Cosby’s legacy is destroyed. His entire career is now revealed to be a sham. What a tragedy for everyone. The women who joined Andrea Constand in 2005, as well as all the women in the last year who’ve come forward with stories about Cosby– including Janice Dickinson–will all be taken seriously now.
Game over.
