Bill Cosby’s lawyers rattled through his rape trial defence in just SIX MINUTES
BILL Cosby’s lawyers rattled through his rape trial defence in just SIX MINUTES yesterday.
The star – flanked by his wife of 53 years Camille – watched on as just one witness, a police detective, was called to support his innocence.
Cosby, 79, declined a high-stakes gamble to give evidence and his attorneys rested their case in minutes – leaving the jury to hear the closing arguments of both sides.
The acting legend – famed for the long-running The Cosby Show – is accused of drugging and sexually assaulting university basketball coach Andrea Constand in 2004.
On day six of the trial, Judge Steven O'Neill asked Cosby a series of questions designed to make sure he was aware of his right to testify and wasn't pressured into deciding against it.
The comic spoke loudly as he answered with “yes” or “no”.
His defence called Detective Richard Schaffer, who was one of 12 witnesses who testified during the five-day prosecution case.
Shaffer told jurors under defence questioning that Constand had visited with Cosby at an out-of-state casino and that police knew he had vision problems more than a decade ago.
The judge denied a defence request to call a second witness - a woman who worked with Constand at Temple University, in Pennsylvania – and the defence surprisingly rested its case.
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A total of 60 women have claimed they were abused by Cosby – but Constand, 44, is the first to take him to criminal trial over the allegations.
She tearfully told a court in Norristown, Pennsylvania, last week how the Hollywood icon molested her after giving her three blue pills at his home in Philadelphia.
During seven hours on the witness stand, she revealed how she lost consciousness but was later “jolted” awake by Cosby abusing her.
When she later returned to Cosby’s home and demanded he tell her what pills he had provided, she claims he told her: “I thought you had an orgasm, didn’t you?”
In a 2005 deposition for the civil lawsuit, Cosby admitted to giving women alcohol and Quaaludes when he wanted to have sex with them.
But he still insists that the drug-taking and sex acts Constand describes were consensual.
Prosecutors wanted 13 other accusers to testify at the trial, but the judge allowed just one, Kelly Johnson, an assistant to his agent at the William Morris Agency.