Everyone expected Andrea Constand to be the star witness Wednesday at Commonwealth v. William H. Cosby, Jr. And certainly Constand, who took the stand in a bright white jacket, the same hue associated with sexual assault awareness and activism, proved unflappable for a second day. Over a four-hour cross examination, defence lawyer Angela Agrusu veered from citing inconsistent police statements to combing through phone records to mentions of bath salts, brandy, incense and a $225 hair dryer.<\/p>\n
What no one could have anticipated was the powerful late afternoon appearance of the witness to follow Constand: her mother, Gianna Constand. Over one and a half hours, \u201cCanada\u2019s Mom\u201d slayed \u201cAmerica\u2019s Dad,\u201d unleashing unrelenting maternal fury on Bill Cosby. She also shut down the defence in its cross-examination, reprimanding it for focusing on the sort of extraneous, picayune details and inconsistencies that routinely take centre stage in sexual assault cases.<\/p>\n
Gianna Constand, a former medical secretary, described receiving a call from her daughter while driving to work in early January 2005.<\/p>\n
Andrea was upset, \u201cMom, I have PTSD,\u201d Gianna recalled her daughter saying, adding that Andrea called Cosby \u201ca bad word.\u201d Then, she said, her daughter told her: \u201cMom, he drugged me and he raped me.\u201d Constand testified she\u2019d seen changes in her daughter since she\u2019d returned to the family home in Pickering, Ont. in 2004. She was having nightmares, waking up in sweat, spacing out when the family was watching TV, her mother reported.<\/p>\n
The news shocked her, Gianna Constand said. She believed Cosby and her daughter were friends. She\u2019d met the entertainer briefly after he\u2019d arranged tickets for her and her other daughter, Diana, to attend a March 2003 appearance at Toronto\u2019s Roy Thomson Hall. The two had pictures taken with Cosby backstage. Cosby also arranged tickets for the family to attend his performance at Casino Rama Resort in Orillia, Ont., in August 2004, months after the alleged assault took place. Gianna Constand bought Cosby a Roots sweatshirt at the mall across the street to express the family\u2019s appreciation. \u201cExtra large. I put it in a gift bag,\u201d she told the court, adding that they didn\u2019t see the beloved celebrity in person: she gave it to a doorman at the show to pass on to him.<\/p>\n
After her daughter\u2019s revelation, Gianna wanted to call Cosby and insisted her daughter give her his number. Andrea refused, she testified: \u201cShe said \u2018Mom, it\u2019s better that you don\u2019t. I\u2019m worried he might do something to our family.\u201d Constand wasn\u2019t having it. \u201cMy mothering insincts kicked in,\u201d she recalled, \u201cand I said \u2018Andrea, if you don\u2019t give me number, I\u2019m going to take next flight out.’\u201d<\/p>\n
She called Cosby and left a message. Meanwhile, the family tried to figure out what to do, she said: \u201cDo we call police. Do we call a lawyer to protect us?\u201d They consulted with her son-in-law, Stuart Parsons, a veteran Toronto city police officer, who testified in court on Tuesday. Andrea also called Ontario\u2019s Durham regional police to report.<\/p>\n
Cosby returned the call on Jan. 6. \u201cI was really angry; I was in anther state of mind,\u201d Gianna Constand told the court. She asked Cosby: \u201cWhat medication did you give to my daughter and what did you do to my daughter? She expressed anger that he\u2019d gone to bed, leaving Andrea alone: \u201cIf my daughter was sick, why didn\u2019t you call 911?\u201d she recalled asking.<\/p>\n
Cosby asked to include Andrea, who picked up an extension. \u2018Let\u2019s tell your mother what happened,’\u201d Cosby told her daughter, Constand testified, noting Cosby called her \u201cMom\u201d throughout. Cosby, not her daughter, shared the details of that night, she said. \u201cAndrea was embarrassed to tell.\u201d Cosby said he touched her daughter\u2019s breasts, she said, adding he told her: \u201cDon\u2019t worry, Mom, there was no penile penetration; there was digital penetration.\u201d Cosby issued a boast, Constand told the court: \u201cMom, she even had an orgasm.\u201d She said Cosby said, \u201cAndrea, do you remember?\u201d At that point, Andrea hung up the phone, her mother reported.<\/p>\n
Gianna Constand was furious: \u201d He was leading me to believe it was consentual, manipulating it. He said \u2018I feel bad telling you this. I sound like a perverted person.’\u201d<\/p>\n
She was \u201cfuming,\u201d she said, but stayed on the phone, speaking to Cosby for two and a half hours. \u201cI was very rude and very aggressive,\u201d she said. She asked Cosby to write the name of the medication down on a piece of paper and mail it to her. He said he would, she testified. Cosby \u201cstarted storytelling, manipulating,\u201d she said. She recalled asking Cosby: \u201cWhy did you do that? You and Andrea were good friends. How did you know she would not drop dead?\u201d Cosby asked if they\u2019d called police, she recalled, when asked by the prosecution: \u201cI said no. I did lie. I was very nervous, very scared\u2026It was just panic all the way around.\u201d<\/p>\n
Constand told Cosby her daughter would need therapy and Cosby offered to pay for it, she said. He also asked if there was anything else he could do. She said she\u2019d discuss it with her husband, but that she\u2019d like an apology. She recalls Cosby saying \u201cI apologize to Andrea and I apologize to you, Mom.\u201d<\/p>\n
She regretted not recording the conversation, she said, so went to to buy a recorder at RadioShack. The court heard the second call with Cosby, which began with him saying: \u201cI want to talk about a few mutual feelings for a friendship and to just see if Andrea is still interested in sportcasting in TV.\u201d Her mother said she\u2019d ask her. \u201cYou\u2019re the boss now, boss,\u201d Cosby responded. \u201cI\u2019m not the boss,\u201d Constand told him. She said her daughter, then training to be a registered massage therapist, was \u201cdoing something different.\u201d Cosby offered to set up schooling for Andrea in Toronto or wherever she wanted, \u201cas long as she maintains a 3.0 grade point average, she\u2019ll be fine,\u201d he said. He also mentioned graduate school, as something they could discuss. Constand asked again for the name of the drug he gave Andrea. \u201cWe can talk about what you asked for later,\u201d Cosby said on the tape. \u201cI\u2019m serious. Lets get with the other thing.\u201d He said he\u2019d have his people arrange a meeting in another city.<\/p>\n
Cosby was thinking \u201clet me fix this,\u201d Costand said. \u201cI was still wanting to know what he had given her.\u201d When a call-waiting beep came on the on the phone, Cosby was suspicious. She told him it was their pet parrot. Later she\u2019d explain to the court it wasn\u2019t a lie: \u201cI do have a parrot and the parrot was in the background,\u201d she said, adding, \u201cHis name is Ozzie.\u201d The aside elicited one of the rare moments of laughter heard in Courtroom A of Montgomery County Court.<\/p>\n
When the prosecution asked Constand why she\u2019d been so aggressive, she paused, put her hand over her face and began sobbing, before regaining composure: \u201cI was very upset because Mr. Cosby had mentored her and they were good friends,\u201d she said. \u201cShe viewed him like a father. He\u2019s 10 years older than her own father. I was very distraught that he drugged her. She was a very healthy girl. She wasn\u2019t a lot into drugs and alcohol.\u201d She paused again. \u201cJust the fact he betrayed her.\u201d<\/p>\n
As Constand spoke, Cosby, who\u2019d been reported \u201csmirking\u201d during Andrea Constand\u2019s testimony Tuesday, appeared expressionless, often looking down.<\/p>\n
Agrusu\u2019s cross-examination of Gianna Constand didn\u2019t go far. She suggested Andrea hadn\u2019t come clean to her mother with the \u201cdetails of her relationship\u201d with Cosby. The elder Constand shot back: \u201cShe didn\u2019t share details of what he did to her.\u201d \u00a0The lawyer suggested that Cosby, a married man, was actually apologizing for \u201cbeing in a relationship\u201d with her daughter. Constand countered that Cosby was \u201csorry for what he did\u201d in terms of the night they had discussed.<\/p>\n
The lawyer asked Constand if she knew her daughter had spent time alone with Cosby, and had traveled to see him at Foxwoods Resort Casino where she spent time in his room, even lying on his bed. Her daughter and Cosby discussed Cosby\u2019s son on that occasion, Constand said, adding, \u201cThey didn\u2019t have an intimate relationship. There was no physical relationship. Never.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Agrusu noted Andrea Constand had not lived at home for years, her mother was having none of it: \u201cI hadn\u2019t lived with her physically, but I live with her every minute of every day.\u201d The lawyer also took Constand to task for not telling Cosby he was being recorded when he seemed nervous after hearing the beep. \u201cYou chose to say it was nothing,\u201d Agrusu said. \u201cHe did\u2019t ask if it was being taped,\u201d Constand answered. \u201cYou knew,\u201d Agrusu said. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter, he didn\u2019t ask,\u201d Constand retorted.<\/p>\n
After a long list of questions\u2014about whether or not the Constant family left the show at Casino Rama early, whether Gianna Constand helped her daughter figure out the night of the assault she reported to police (\u201cNo,\u201d she said), whether she had a lawyer when she gave her police statement\u2014Gianna Constand lashed out in frustration. \u201cThe questions you are asking me are testing my memory about irrelevant things,\u201d she said. \u201cCould you ask me questions that are important. I\u2019m having a hard time.\u201d At that juncture, Judge O\u2019Neill told Constand she needed to answer the question, not respond.<\/p>\n
Agrusu, clearly realizing there was no upside in continuing, turned to Constand: \u201cYour daughter is important to you,\u201d she said. \u201cI think all our children are important,\u201d Constand shot back.<\/p>\n
The arrival of Gianna Constand sent a jolt through proceedings that, until then, had been submerged in judicial protocol. Her near-primal response in support of a daughter she implicitly believed laid bare a judicial system that holds the defendant to be innocent, while the complainant is subject to a barrage of attack assuming guilt. That was on plain display earlier in the day as Andrea Constand faced cross-examination that focused on everything from discrepancies in her various police reports to the fact she likes to talk on the phone to friends late at night.<\/p>\n
The defence zeroed in on March 16, 2004, the date Constand had told detectives in Montgomery County and Cheltenham Township that Cosby assaulted her after she had gone out to dinner with Cosby and a group of people.<\/p>\n
On stand the day earlier, Constand said she had been \u201cmistaken:\u201d the assault had been mid-to-late January 2004; she confronted Cosby about it after the dinner on March 16. Nevertheless, Agrusu combed through Constand\u2019s phone records on March 16, to show she\u2019d called Cosby and other friends at the very hour she said she\u2019d been drugged and assaulted. The lawyer also spent time citing Constand\u2019s late-night calls to a female friend, an exercise with no apparent point. The fact Constand brought bath salts to Cosby which were produced by a business run by a friend was another tangent explored; the lawyer asking the witness if she had ever talked about going into business with this bath-salt-making friend. \u201cYes,\u201d Constand said.<\/p>\n
Constand was questioned too for not mentioning bringing Cosby incense the first time she had dinner at his house, an item she said he requested. She was questioned for not mentioning the two had eaten dinner by a fire, their legs touching and lights dimmed (the prosecution would shoot down the \u201clegs touching\u201d detail on redirect). They also drank brandy, which was somehow rendered as a nefarious behaviour. \u201cI don\u2019t remember how dim the lights were but I had to eat my dinner,\u201d Constand said. She was also grilled for not mentioning in police reports that she asked Cosby whether the \u201cthree small pills\u201d that would incapacitate her, could be taken under her tongue.<\/p>\n
Agrusu\u2019s oddest line of questioning focused on allegations that Cosby, her client, made more explicit sexual advances than Constand reported. \u201cHe unbuttoned and unzipped your zipper. He touched the top of zipper and proceded to touch you,\u201d the lawyer said. \u201cHe did not touch me,\u201d Constand responded, saying, as she had the day earlier, she had leaned forward to thwart Cosby (the prosecution later provide earlier testimony from Constand that corroborated the point.)<\/p>\n
Once again the court was taken to Foxwood Resort Casino in November 2003, where Constand sat at the edge of the bed while Cosby lay out on it, his eyes closed. She again explained she had her feet on the floor the whole time.<\/p>\n
Agrusu also combed through the date and time of the dozens of phone calls Costand placed to Cosby in late January and February 2004 to raise doubt as to why a woman who\u2019d been sexually assaulted would contact her attacker. The fact Constand called Cosby numerous times on Feb. 14, Valentine\u2019s Day, was fully canvassed: \u201cYou knew Mr Cosby was married, right?,\u201d Agrusu asked \u201cYes,\u201d Constand answered, later telling the court: \u201cI may have been returning phone calls. Obviously I placed calls but I was receiving calls.\u201d Assistant district attorney Kristen Feden put the calls in context in terms of power dynamics, asking Constand about Cosby\u2019s illustrious stature at Temple, her employer: \u201cWas he on the board of trustees?\u201d she asked. \u201cYes,\u201d Constand answered. \u201cIf he called would you call him back?\u201d Feden asked \u201cYes,\u201d Constand answered.<\/p>\n
The fact Cosby and Constand exchanged gifts\u2014cashmere sweaters, perfume and a $225 hair dryer from Cosby and Temple-branded gear from Constand\u2014would form the basis of another line of inquiry. Agrusu ended her cross examination with a photoshopped picture of Fat Albert, a character Cosby used to play, with her face superimposed on it. Constand had given it to Cosby. A friend made it, Constand explained. \u201cIt was something silly.\u201d<\/p>\n
And that state of silliness was were the court was before Gianna Constand took the stand, and reframed not only Commonwealth v. William H. Cosby, Jr. but enduring adoration for a man once known as \u201cAmerica\u2019s Dad\u201d who might now be justifiably remembered as the guy who said: \u201cMom, she even had an orgasm.\u201d<\/p>\n
By:\u00a0Anne Kingston<\/p>\n
Source:<\/p>\n
http:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/society\/at-the-bill-cosby-trial-canadas-mom-slays-americas-dad\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"