Cosby gave me a pill to 'relax', says witness

07 June 2017 - 09:25 By Reuters
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Actor and comedian Bill Cosby leaves with his spokesman Andrew Wyatt (R) and lawyer Brian McMonagle after the second day of his sexual assault trial at the Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown, Pennsylvania, U.S. June 6, 2017.
Actor and comedian Bill Cosby leaves with his spokesman Andrew Wyatt (R) and lawyer Brian McMonagle after the second day of his sexual assault trial at the Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown, Pennsylvania, U.S. June 6, 2017.
Image: BRENDAN MCDERMID

The first witness in Bill Cosby's trial said she held off for years going public with the story of how the comedian drugged and sexually abused her for fear no one would take her word against someone she viewed as "the biggest celebrity in the world".

Cosby, 79, has not been charged with assaulting Kelly Johnson, but prosecutors are using her testimony to show that he followed a pattern of drugging women and then assaulting them - including Andrea Constand, whose case is the basis of the criminal trial that began on Monday.

Johnson testified that in 1996 Cosby gave her a pill to "relax" her when she went to his Los Angeles hotel room for career advice. She said she became unconscious and when she came to she was partially undressed and Cosby made her touch his genitals.

Johnson said she had waited years to accuse Cosby.

"I was humiliated and embarrassed," she said. "I was very afraid because I had a secret about the biggest celebrity in the world at that time. It was just me and my word against his."

More than 50 women have accused Cosby - once beloved by US audiences as the dad in the long-running TV hit The Cosby Show - of sexually assaulting them in a series of attacks dating back to the 1960s.

Constand's is the only one of those cases that is not too old to be the subject of criminal prosecution, leaving the question of whether Cosby will be found guilty of sex crimes hanging primarily on her word.

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