NORRISTOWN, Pa. — The judge overseeing Bill Cosby’s sex assault retrial has denied jurors’ requests to compare two statements — given more than a year apart — by a defense witness who claims she was there when the entertainer’s accuser concocted her story.
Temple University employee Marguerite “Margo” Jackson Andrea Constand — who was in the courtroom as jurors asked their second question of their deliberations Wednesday — told her in February 2004 that she could accuse a celebrity of sexual assault to “get money.”
Constand, 45, would later settle a civil suit against Cosby for $3.4 million, after prosecutors failed to file criminal charges against him based on accusations he’d drugged and molested her in January 2004.
In the 2017 statement, Jackson says the two were in a Rhode Island hotel room for a basketball game when a news item flashed on the TV about a celebrity accused of sexual assault.
Jackson claims Constand, 45, then turned to her and said she’d been sexually assaulted by an unnamed, high-profile person.
Jackson testified that Constand, gesturing toward the news item, then asked her, “What do you think this is about?”
“I said this is a civil case and money is a great motivator,” the school counselor recalls replying.
The 2016 statement omits the phrase “money is a great motivator.”
Prosecutor Stewart Ryan argued the second statement was “created” by Cosby’s new defense team to bolster their claims that Constand faked her story for a payout. He also noted the placement of quotation marks to the 2017 statement, which had not appeared in the 2016 statement.
Neither statement was admitted as evidence during the trial, and so jurors were barred from receiving hard copies in response to their note. Judge Steven O’Neill told them to rely on their “recollection.”
Jackson was not permitted to testify at Cosby’s first trial, which ended with a hung jury.