Getty Images/Gilbert Carrasquillo(PENNSYLVANIA) — Jurors in Bill Cosby’s sexual assault trial in Norristown, Pennsylvania, were told by prosecutors Monday that accuser Andrea Constand became “completely paralyzed, frozen, lifeless” after the famed comedian allegedly gave her pills in 2004 at his Pennsylvania home.
“The muscle strength in her body slipped slowly away, along with her consciousness. Total control of her body lost,” Assistant Montgomery County Assistant District Attorney Kristen Feden argued.
“This is a case about a man, this man, who used his power and his fame and his previously practiced method of placing a young, trusting woman in an unconscious state, so that he could sexually pleasure himself, so that she couldn’t say no,” she continued.
Constand claims Cosby drugged and molested her at his home in Pennsylvania in 2004; Cosby has said that he gave Constand a Benadryl and that their sexual encounter was consensual.
In 2015, Cosby was charged with felony aggravated indecent assault shortly before the statute of limitations on Constand’s claim expired. He has pleaded not guilty.
Cosby’s defense attorney Brian McMonagle emphatically told the jury that Constand was never incapacitated” during her encounters with the comedian, and that she had been untruthful time and time and time again” with local law enforcement.
McMonagle referred to what he called police’s “exhaustive investigation,” which initially ended with former District Attorney Bruce Castor’s decision not to prosecute. He also pointed out that it took Constand a year to come forward with her claims.
“The only thing that is worse [than sexual assault] is the false accusation of sexual assault…a false accusation of sexual assault – it’s an attack on human dignity, it’s an attack on human dignity. It can destroy a man,” he added.
Constand, her mother and a forensic toxicologist will testify at the trial.
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