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CNN Special Reports
Special Report: Case Against Cosby. Aired 9-10p ET
Aired June 10, 2017 - 21:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[21:00:17] JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Tonight --
HEIDI THOMAS, SAYS COSBY ASSAULTED HER IN 1984: I didn't think I was in any danger.
BARBARA BOWMAN, SAYS COSBY ASSAULTED HER: I was assaulted.
LILI BERNARD, SAYS COSBY ASSAULTED HER: He drugged me. He raped me.
THOMAS: He was naked, I was clothed.
BOWMAN: I was raped.
CASAREZ: There are multiple accusers, one of them with disturbing images you have never seen before. But only this woman, her case, has the power to put Bill Cosby in prison.
BERNARD: She's righteous and fearless and she stands in truth.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He has maintains his innocence. He stands here today maintaining that innocence.
THOMAS: All I can say is where there's smoke there's fire and there's an awful lot of smoke.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you believe that there is absolutely nothing that this man has done?
CASAREZ: "The Case Against Cosby."
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good morning Mr. Bill Cosby, how are you doing today?
CASAREZ: He is an American icon who could soon become a convicted felon.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good luck on your trial, sir.
BILL COSBY, ACTOR/COMEDIAN: Thank you.
CASAREZ: It is a criminal trial for aggravated indecent assault to which he has pleaded not guilty. And it comes on the heels of very public, very graphic allegations from dozens of women who say the man who sold kids pudding pops --
COSBY: So, what do you call this masterpiece? UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Pop art.
CASAREZ: And taught a nation how to parent.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi, daddy.
COSBY: Hey, how you doing, Peaches?
CASAREZ: Is a serial rapist.
BERNARD: Sort of got this haze and then blank. I'm going like in and out of consciousness during the raping.
THOMAS: He was on top of me putting himself in my mouth.
BOWMAN: And my panties, they are like bunched over to the side.
THOMAS: I remember him stirring and starting to get on top of me again.
BERNARD: I remember yelling, no, stop, I can't do this.
BOWMAN: He's had sex with me, he raped me.
CASAREZ: That's Barbara Bowman, Lili Bernard and Heidi Thomas. They are among more than 50 women who claimed the comedian sexually assaulted them in some cases, after drugging them. Though he strenuously denies all allegations, Bill Cosby refuses to address them on camera and he's never had to defend himself in criminal court until now. And it's because of allegations from this one woman, Andrea Constand. She was the first to publicly accuse him.
CASAREZ: What kind of a person is she?
BERNARD: She's just real, down to earth. She's chill. She's bad ass.
CASAREZ: Lili Bernard reached out to Andrea Constand on Facebook.
BERNARD: Just to say hello, I think you're great. You're a shero and it would so great to meet you.
CASAREZ: For months there was no call, and then Bernard says, her phone rang at the end of a particularly difficult day.
BERNARD: She finally called and she said she didn't know why but she just felt her spirit calling her, to call me and she was speaking. I'm sorry -- I'm getting emotional because my relationship with Andrea is so spiritual.
CASAREZ: Christianity, Bernard says, is something they have in common.
BERNARD: She said I wear an armor of righteousness on my breast and on my head I am wearing a helmet of salvation, you know, and I got a shield in my hand she says, and the shield is faith and all I can do, Lily, is stand firm in my truth.
CASAREZ: She says, they talk regularly but Constand will never discuss Cosby. They've met only once.
BERNARD: I took her to the gym near my house where my children play basketball. My son couldn't keep up with her because Andrea Constand can play basketball.
CASAREZ: Constand played four years at the University of Arizona, two more in Europe. Her goal? To play for the WNBA. But she didn't make it. So in 2001, Constand decided it was time to make a career off the court and accepted a job at Temple University in Philadelphia. The very center of Bill Cosby's world.
ROBERT HUBER, WRITER AT LARGE, PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINE: He was a very Philly-centric guy and kind of a cheerleader for the city. And he grew up in the projects of Philadelphia. And he was revered in Philadelphia.
CASAREZ: Revered for becoming the first black actor to have a leading role in a television show. For creating children's shows like "Fat Albert" which mixed life lessons with laughs.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you're not careful you might learn something before it's done. Hey, hey, hey!
[21:05:05] CASAREZ: And he was revered for his role as Dr. Heathcliff Huxtable, the wise and wise cracking father of five on the mega hit sitcom of the 1980s, "The Cosby Show."
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ask mom, go ask her.
COSBY: Ask mom? I --
CASAREZ: A program that at its height of popularity was watched by 30 million people each week. The show gave him a large, loyal following and the persona of America's dad. A role which he continued to play after the show was over, calling out low-income black Americans, urging them to get educated and behave.
COSBY: Your 13-year-old son got no business seeing himself as a man who can drop a seed and walk away.
CASAREZ: He did more than lecture, becoming a vocal, visible supporter of historically black colleges and universities.
COSBY: I am not going to cut slack because of your color. You're strong people.
CASAREZ: But when it came to colleges, Temple, his Alma Mater held a special place in his heart.
HUBER: Temple was huge for him. He was a big backer of Temple sports. Eventually, when he became -- Bill Cosby became a member of the board, he gave a lot of money to Temple.
CASAREZ: And that's where Cosby met Andrea Constand following a Temple women's basketball game in late 2001.
HUBER: Andrea Constand was an administrator in the women's basketball program at Temple. And she got to know Bill Cosby through Temple channels and they had dinners together. She would ask him for advice. She said, and looked at him as something of a mentor.
CASAREZ: By early 2004, Constand had decided basketball management wasn't for her. And was considering her next career move.
GRAHAM BOWLEY, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER, THE NEW YORK TIMES: She seemed to be at a crossroads in her life. She was deciding whether to stay in Temple or move back to Canada.
CASAREZ: In the middle of her decision making, Constand spoke with Cosby on the phone. She says he invited her over to talk. She expected advice and a conversation. Both Cosby and Constand agree, a lot more than talk happened that night.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[21:10:56] CASAREZ: Basketball and Temple University are what Bill Cosby and Andrea Constand had in common when they met in 2001. Constand says she trusted Cosby and considered him a mentor. It is why from 2002 through 2004 she visited his home outside of Philadelphia a handful of times. Despite the fact that court documents show a troubling moment when she says, Cosby touched my leg and inner thigh.
Do we know at all why Andrea Constand kept going back to his house?
BOWLEY: He was her mentor. Why shouldn't she? You know, why shouldn't she?
CASAREZ: And she wanted his advice. By 2004, she was thinking about quitting her job with Temple's women's basketball team and returning home to Toronto to study massage. She says Bill Cosby knew she was making life changes when he called her and invited her over to talk about them.
BOWLEY: She comes as a friend seeking help, she is trying to decide where her career goes next.
CASAREZ: She arrived, she says around 8:45 p.m. Cosby says they discussed the fact that she couldn't sleep that her eyeballs were moving whenever she tried to sleep. He says he then went upstairs and came down with some pills.
These will make you feel good, Constand says he told her. The blue things will take the edge off. Down them, put them down, put them in your mouth. She says he told her they were herbal medications. Constand says, she took the pills with water that had been placed on the table. She says there was some wine there, too and that he urged her to taste it. He will later claim the pills were Benadryl, an over the counter allergy medication he says he takes to relax.
BOWLEY: From her point of view these are far stronger than Benadryl.
DIANA MOSKOVITZ, WRITER, DEADSPIN: She pretty quickly starts to lose consciousness. She feels dizzy. She feels weak.
CASAREZ: She says Cosby helped her to the sofa. I was lying on my left side with my knees bent, she says. Constand claims it was the last moment she was completely conscious.
MOSKOVITZ: She says he touched her breasts. He touched her vagina and eventually he digitally penetrated her and the whole time she was semiconscious.
CASAREZ: I also remember him taking my right hand and placing my hand on his penis, she says.
BOWLEY: She was scared. She wants him to stop. She was on the sofa. She remembers only bits, sort of --
CASAREZ: Blurry vision.
BOWLEY: -- what's happening, exactly. From Bill Cosby, that's not happening at all. You know, this is like a consensual relationship, they're on the sofa, in his home, in a safe space, they're in a very good relationship, this is just the next stage in something that is completely consensual.
CASAREZ: Bill Cosby agrees there was sexual contact that night but says it was all part of a romantic relationship. Had you had any petting or romantic relationship prior to that night? He is asked. Yes, he says, insisting something similar happened at least three other times. He also says that Constand was awake the entire time. And that she never told him to stop. When asked if she consented, Constand says no, I did not.
She also denies any sort of romantic relationship with Cosby. Andrea Constand says, she awoke on Bill Cosby's couch around 4:00 a.m. She claims Cosby was standing nearby and offered her a muffin. She says she took a couple of pieces of it and left, his house, the school, the country, and she stayed quiet for a year.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[21:19:18] CASAREZ: By January of 2005, Andrea Constand was back home in Toronto. Hundreds of miles from Philadelphia. What she said Bill Cosby did to her there still a secret. Until she told her mom.
BOWLEY: Her mother notices her behavior, her demeanor is, you know, she's apparently depressed and she tells her mother what happened.
CASAREZ: Her mother encouraged her to do what nobody had done before her. File a report against Bill Cosby. And follow it through.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The woman said that she was touched inappropriately. CASAREZ: Authorities in Pennsylvania began investigating America's
dad for sexual assault. But it had been a year. Any forensic evidence that might have existed on Constand or in Cosby's home would likely be long gone. Still --
BRUCE CASTOR, FORMER MONTGOMERY COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: When I read the interviews I thought he was being evasive. It just told me in my gut that at the very least he thought he had done something wrong.
CASAREZ: But feelings are not proof. And less than a month after the investigation started, the district attorney ended it, issuing a press release saying, there was insufficient credible and admissible evidence to prosecute Bill Cosby.
BOWMAN: And I became enraged.
CASAREZ: Enraged, says Barbara Bowman because Bill Cosby attacked her when she was an 18-year-old aspiring actress.
BOWMAN: Come on up to Colorado's favorite ski resort.
CASAREZ: He was her mentor, she says and invited her to his New York Brownstone to practice and have dinner.
BOWMAN: I am sipping on my wine and we finished dinner. And -- I just sort of got this haze and then -- blank. And came to in the bathroom throwing up in the toilet. And he's right here and the robe is -- it's tied but it's open. And the boxer shorts are open. And his penis is out. And it was very clear to me that my body was not in the same shape it was in when I got there.
CASAREZ: She tried to get help. But says nobody would listen. Not even an attorney.
BOWMAN: He didn't believe me. Come on, are you kidding me? That's Bill Cosby you're talking about. He laughed me out of the office.
CASAREZ: For 20 years, there was little Barbara Bowman could do. Then, she heard about Andrea Constand. In 2005, the former basketball player filed a case in civil court after the D.A. refused to press criminal charges against Cosby.
BOWMAN: I said I will do whatever it takes to let people know that that woman is telling the truth. When I finally got in touch with her attorney, and said my name is Barbara Bowman and it happened to me too. And she told me, you're not the only one. I was the third. There were two others before me. Then I found out there were ten more.
CASAREZ: She was among three accusers who went public at that time.
Team Cosby has always strongly denied all allegations. But Andrea Constand's attorneys were determined the women be heard. Petitioning the court to allow all 13 to tell their stories at trial.
BOWMAN: All of us were willing to testify. CASAREZ: But the women never took the stand. The case never went to
trial. Cosby sat for a deposition but settled with Constand in the summer of 2006.
BOWLEY: The deposition is sealed. There's some sort of financial agreement.
HUBER: Part of that suit, she couldn't talk about it and hasn't talked about it.
CASAREZ: And that was pretty much the end of the story. Despite the fact that 13 other women claimed the man known as America's dad sexually assaulted them.
[21:24:01] BOWMAN: Nobody would believe it. And the mainstream wouldn't touch it.
HANNIBAL BURRESS, COMEDIAN: Bill Cosby has the (bleep) smuggest old black male persona that I hate. He gets on TV, pull your pants up, black people. I can talk down to you because I had a successful sitcom!
CASAREZ: That's comedian Hannibal Burress performing in Bill Cosby's Philadelphia in October of 2014.
BURRESS: Yes, but you rape women, Bill Cosby, so turn the crazy down a couple notches!
HUBER: There was a Philadelphia magazine blogger in the audience. He videotapes it and he puts it online and then it immediately goes viral.
BURRESS: Google Bill Cosby rape.
CASAREZ: People were Googling it.
HUBER: Re-tweeting it. Sharing it. Pushing it.
CASAREZ: And then Barbara Bowman stepped back into the middle of it all. She wrote an op-ed in the "Washington Post" and it opened the flood gates.
VICTORIA VALENTINO, SAYS COSBY ASSAULTED HER IN 1970: He forced me to perform oral sex.
BERNARD: And then he took the pill and pushing it against my face and I couldn't breathe and I'm thinking, I'm going to die.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[21:29:08] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Bill Cosby.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
CASAREZ: Fall of 2014 and Bill Cosby was busy telling the world he was far from finished.
COSBY: And what happens to the king? He is moving one square.
CASAREZ: Touring, taping a Netflix special and negotiating a new sitcom with NBC. It made him fodder for Hannibal Buress' standup routine.
BURESS: Yes. But you rape women, Bill Cosby, so --
CASAREZ: And prompted Barbara Bowman's op-ed alleging Cosby drugged and raped her.
KELLY JOHNSON, SAYS COSBY ASSAULTED HER IN 1996: He offered me a large white pill.
CASAREZ: And then came a series of stunning, unsettling allegations.
REBECCA LYNN NEAL, SAYS COSBY ASSAULTED HER IN 1986: He drugged and sexually assaulted me.
CASAREZ: Against America's dad.
JOHNSON: I remember waking up in a bed with Mr. Cosby naked beneath his open robe.
BETH FERRIER, SAYS COSBY ASSAULTED HER IN 1986: Skirts undone, underwear torn.
THOMAS: I remember the assault that is very graphic. He was naked, I was clothed.
VICTORIA VALENTINO, SAYS BILL COSBY ASSAULTED HER IN 1970: And he opened his fly and he forced me to perform oral sex.
PERRIER: He hurt me in the most wicked, horrible way.
JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Cosby has refused multiple interview requests, but his lawyers issued this statement in November of 2014.
"These brand new claims about alleged decades-old events are becoming increasingly ridiculous, and it is completely illogical that so many people have said nothing, done nothing, and made no reports to law enforcement or asserted civil claims."
CASAREZ (on camera): Cosby's attorneys have denied all the allegations.
THOMAS: That's what they're hired to do. So even if you don't believe, to the letter, of what every woman is saying, really, do you believe that there's absolutely nothing that this man has done with all of these stories so similar?
CASAREZ (voice-over): Among the similarities, claims of tainted drinks.
THOMAS: He brought me a glass of white wine, just sip on it.
PERRIER: He said, I made you your favorite drink.
CASAREZ (voice-over): And mentoring relationships that turn manipulative. Like those alleged by Barbara Bowman, Andrea Constand, and artist, Lili Bernard.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LILI BERNARD, ARTIST: Told you I got to.
CASAREZ (voice-over): She was a young actress --
BERNARD: Yes, hello?
CASAREZ (voice-over): -- when Cosby took notice.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERNARD: And he began mentoring me, "mentoring me."
CASAREZ (voice-over): At first, she says, the relationship felt normal.
BERNARD: He asked me to tell him everything about myself. You know, he'd lean in, "OK, tell me. Tell me about your dad." You know, I'd tell him about my dad. "Tell me about your mom. How many brothers and sisters do you have? Where were you born?"
CASAREZ (voice-over): She says she told him she had been physically abused as a child.
BERNARD: I did not know that he was just trying to find my vulnerability, so he could exploit them. I just thought he cares so much about me.
CASAREZ (voice-over): She thought he was a father figure interested in helping her succeed.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
BERNARD: How have you been?
BILL COSBY, COMEDIAN: Fine!
CASAREZ (voice-over): And points to this 1991 answering machine recording she made of him.
COSBY: I'm asking you how you're doing because you are one of my kids.
BERNARD: Yes.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
CASAREZ (voice-over): Bernard says that voice is Bill Cosby's. She says soon after the mentorship began, while putting her through breathing exercises one day --
BERNARD: He says you have to straighten your spine, drop your shoulders.
CASAREZ (voice-over): -- things suddenly changed.
BERNARD: And he says, you have to lift rib case. So he's behind me now and he puts his hand on my rib cage and he pats on my diagram. And then he goes like this. He grabs my breasts and squeezes them.
And I said, "Mr. C! You grabbed my breasts!" He said, "No, I didn't." We kept going back and forth, and I was like really getting upset.
He said, "No, I didn't!" And then he started saying that he was so upset. He said, "You're one of my kids, Bernard. How would you think that of me?"
And so I was like, wow. You know, I started feeling guilty. I started feeling ashamed, like, how could I have thought that? He would never do that to me.
CASAREZ (voice-over): Then came Atlantic City in summer of 1990, where she says he gave her brown, bad-tasting drink.
BERNARD: And I said, "Mr. C, I think I'm going to vomit."
CASAREZ (voice-over): She threw up, remembers him taking off her clothes, and then she says she passed out.
BERNARD: And then the next memory I have, I'm lying on the ground. I'm already going in and out of consciousness, but I opened my eyes. The room is spinning, everything's dizzy.
I see Bill Cosby's face here. I see his brown chest over here. I was lying on my back and he was on top of me, you know, but it's just -- there was a shaft inside of my vagina pushing.
CASAREZ (voice-over): Hours later, she says he quickly dressed her and put her in a car. At first, she says she was confused and wrote the vomiting off to food poisoning like a case she'd had months earlier. Then, she says, reality hit her in the face.
BERNARD: I remember looking down at my stockings on my legs, on my thighs, and the ribbing was twisted to the right. I would never put my stockings on like that. I looked under my skirt and my cotton crotch is inside out.
And then I started thinking, oh, my god! I said, this could not have happened. And I made a conscious decision right there, this didn't happen.
CASAREZ (on camera): Do you think that that's why, when he then asked you to go to Las Vegas, is that why you were able to say yes?
BERNARD: Oh, yes, because I totally blocked it out. And I know this is hard for people to understand, you know, unless you're a trauma survivor.
[21:35:03] CASAREZ (voice-over): Hard to understand why she'd agree to meet him again. But Cosby, 27 years her senior, was powerful and persuasive. And she says he was still promising her big opportunities. This time, she says, a meeting in Las Vegas.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Action --
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CASAREZ (voice-over): With producers from his hit his series, "A Different World." But once she arrived in Las Vegas, Bernard says there were no producers. But there were beverages. A non-alcoholic one for her this time because she didn't drink.
BERNARD: He said, "I got you your sparkling apple cider." And he says, "Drink up, Bernard. Drink up." You know, "Drink up."
CASAREZ (voice-over): She says he pushed the bottom of the glass up to make her drink it faster.
BERNARD: Very shortly thereafter, the room starts spinning. And I start getting dizzy. My knees are weak.
CASAREZ (voice-over): She thought maybe Cosby gave her his alcoholic drink instead of the cider, and it made her drunk.
BERNARD: And then, at one point, I just couldn't stand anymore and I just went voom! And my left rib cage hit, very hard, the corner of a sharp coffee table.
CASAREZ (voice-over): It hurt, and she says it would later bruise. She says she passed out a short time after, came to, then passed out again.
BERNARD: When he was raping me and I was telling him to stop -- "No, stop, please" -- and I was screaming. And then, I remember he put his hand on my mouth, then he was yelling at me, "Shut up, Bernard. Shut up! Shut up!" And then he took the pillow, and he started pushing it against my face.
I couldn't move because of whatever drugs he gave me that paralyzed me, and he's pushing and I couldn't breathe. And I'm thinking, I'm going to die. That was a moment that I thought I was going to die of suffocation.
CASAREZ (voice-over): The pillow, the bruise. This time, she says, she couldn't block what happened out of her mind. Instead, she did something else.
BERNARD: I made a decision to never be alone in a room with him again. CASAREZ (voice-over): But that didn't mean giving up on getting what
she says he promised her, a guest spot on his show. In this answering machine recording, Bernard says she pressed him on it.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
BERNARD: I've been waiting to be on your show. You and your team --
COSBY: Lili, I called to put you on it, and you were --
BERNARD: When? When, Mr. C?
COSBY: Don't you remember calling me back and saying --
BERNARD: Way back in --
COSBY: -- "Thank you very much for remembering me"?
BERNARD: And that was way back in September. Wait, Mr. C, hold up. I was at a play, and you called me, like, two hours before you wanted me in the studios.
COSBY: Well, I just thought about the darn thing, Lili.
BERNARD: I thought (unintelligible).
COSBY: Wait, wait, wait, wait. Don't --
BERNARD: What?
COSBY: Don't go crazy on me now because there are parts --
(END AUDIO CLIP)
CASAREZ (voice-over): Soon enough, the call would come that Lili Bernard says changed her life forever.
BERNARD: I get a phone call from Bill Cosby. He tells me, you have to come now, the role is ready for you.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[21:42:13] BERNARD: I just need a moment.
CASAREZ (voice-over): The last time Lili Bernard was at Bill Cosby's Manhattan brownstone, she says it was October 1991, and he ripped her world apart.
BERNARD: Bill Cosby called me to inform me that he had finally written the role for me to be on his show and that I had to come to his house and accept a phone call.
CASAREZ (voice-over): A phone call about a guest spot on "The Cosby Show," something she says he promised her for so long, that she'd worked for so hard that she agreed to see him again. Once inside his home, she says the phone call never came. And he
wanted to do acting exercises. Nearby them was a bottle of body lotion.
BERNARD: He told me to take that bottle and do what you have to do with that. And I said, but I don't know what you're talking about, Mr. C. So he picks up the bottle and he walks around behind me.
I turn around and there he is seated and his pants were open, and he grabbed my hand and put them on his penis. I began to cry and to sob. I told him, "I can't do this. Stop it. Stop it, I can't."
CASAREZ (voice-over): Devastated and sobbing, she says, he handed her a drink.
BERNARD: Very quickly, like within 15 minutes, my body began feeling heavy, like lead.
CASAREZ (voice-over): A feeling, she says, followed by a realization.
BERNARD: At that point, I was triggered to remember that this happened to me in Atlantic City. It happened in Las Vegas. That moment was critical for me because, at that moment, I realized, wow, he didn't rape me in Atlantic City because I had food poisoning. He didn't rape me a year prior in Las Vegas because I was accidentally drunk.
This is premeditated. He drugged me. He drugged me in Atlantic City. He drugged me in Las Vegas. He drugged me now.
CASAREZ (voice-over): In a haze, Bernard says she fired back.
BERNARD: I began yelling at him. I started saying I'm going to go to the police. And he was telling me that, the minute that I go to the police, that he's going to the police station after me and file a police report against me for false accusation and defamation.
So I staggered up the stairs. I began walking that way. There was definitely a metal post here, and I was holding on and leaning on it like this because I could barely stand.
CASAREZ (voice-over): Despite her condition, she says she managed to hail a cab home.
BERNARD: I remember specifically putting my hands on the steps to help myself walk up.
[21:45:00] CASAREZ (voice-over): She buzzed her boyfriend, now husband.
BERNARD: I said, "I need help. Help, help. Come down now."
CASAREZ (voice-over): She says they went up the steps, inside the apartment, and decided together they had no choice but to stay quiet.
BERNARD: He had made it very clear that he was going to blacklist me and that he was going to tell people that I was a slut and a whore and a no-good talent.
CASAREZ (on camera): If somebody said to you, out there, it was consensual?
BERNARD: That's baloney. That's a baloney. I made it very clear that our relationship was professional.
CASAREZ (voice-over): Soon after the alleged attack, Bernard confided in her friend, Deborah Gregory.
DEBORAH GREGORY, AUTHOR, "THE CHEETAH GIRLS": I never heard anyone in my life say these words to me. She said, he drugged and raped me. So that's something you don't forget.
NANCI BROWN, LILI BERNARD'S FORMER AGENT: I remember really emphatically wanting to go to the police and her emphatically not wanting me to go.
CASAREZ: Nanci Brown was her agent. A few weeks after the alleged incident, she called Bernard with some stunning news. She had booked "The Cosby Show."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COSBY: When the contractions reach eight minutes apart, that's when you call me. Now, what did I just say?
BERNARD: Call you every eight minutes.
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CASAREZ (voice-over): The episode aired in January of 1992. Afterwards, Bernard said she tried to move on but couldn't and attempted suicide as she had when she was a teen.
BERNARD: Nobody knew that I spent many moments up there trying to kill myself.
CASAREZ (voice-over): After one suicide attempt in 1992, a psychotherapist had her make these drawings. "Mr. C, I can't move. I can't breathe. Somebody help me."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking news, a stunning admission from Bill Cosby.
ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR: Admitting under oath he gave drugs to at least one woman before having sex with her.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CASAREZ (voice-over): In July of 2015, Bernard got a bit of validation from an unexpected place, an unsealed transcript of Cosby's deposition in the Andrea Constand civil case.
In the 2005 deposition, Constand's attorney asked Cosby about another woman's claim that he gave her Quaaludes in Las Vegas.
"When you got the Quaaludes, was it in your mind that you were going to use these Quaaludes for young women that you wanted to have sex with?" "Yes," Cosby answered.
ROBERT HUBER, FEATURES EDITOR, PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINE: Some people looked at that as a kind of smoking gun. There are the drugs he procured for sex.
BERNARD: My first thought is that that was an admission.
CASAREZ (voice-over): It's not that simple. Cosby's lawyers quickly objected and Cosby claimed he misunderstood the question. Woman, he corrected, not women. Referring, he insisted, to the woman he met in Las Vegas, who, he says, consented to taking the powerful sedative.
The deposition is a bomb. And it sets off another.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Cosby, anything you want to say?
KEVIN STEELE, DISTRICT ATTORNEY, MONTGOMERY COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA: We are here to announce today charges that have just been filed against William Henry Cosby.
CASAREZ (voice-over): December 30, 2015, just weeks before the 12- year statute of limitations was set to expire in the Andrea Constand case, America's dad, Bill Cosby was arraigned on three felony counts of aggravated indecent assault.
CASAREZ (on camera): What was new?
GRAHAM BOWLEY, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Two things changed. The great wave of complaints by other women. Many more than they'd been aware of a decade earlier. And two, the deposition. The deposition is very key because it's his own words.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Guys, can you move out of the way? Guys, please.
CASAREZ (voice-over): Cosby's own words have been a rarity on this subject. He will not address Bernard's allegations or any others. He will not speak to us on camera. He says he will not testify at trial. But his own words may get him in trouble anyway.
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[21:52:53] CASAREZ (voice-over): December 30th, 2015.
STEELE: We are here to announce today charges.
CASAREZ (voice-over): More than 10 years after Andrea Constand made her allegations, they've resulted in three counts of aggravated indecent assault against Bill Cosby. The comedian was accused of digitally penetrating Constand, doing it
while she was unconscious, and administering intoxicants to prevent resistance. Despite the fact that Cosby pleaded not guilty, for his accusers, it was an exhilarating day.
BERNARD: I felt vindicated. It's a hallelujah moment for me.
CASAREZ (voice-over): Prosecutors had hoped to show at trial what Andrea Constand alleged Bill Cosby did, he did dozens of times before. They found 13 women to testify. Among them, Heidi Thomas, who says Bill Cosby sexually assaulted her 33 years ago in Reno.
THOMAS: I would have enjoyed being able to look him in the eye and essentially say, you didn't win, I'm not broken.
CASAREZ (voice-over): It would never happen. Cosby's attorneys petitioned to keep the 13 accusers out of the trial, and the Judge decided to let only one woman testify. Her name is Kelly Johnson.
JOHNSON: He said, "Would I give you anything that would hurt you? Trust me."
CASAREZ (voice-over): Like Constand, she says Bill Cosby gave her an unknown medication and then assaulted her.
HUBER: And it was a huge victory for the defense for Bill Cosby because it brought us awfully close to he said/she said.
[21:54:57] CASAREZ (voice-over): Cosby's accusers hope it ends here, inside this historic courthouse, six miles outside Philadelphia. A verdict could come before the end of June. If Bill Cosby is found guilty of all charges, the nearly 80-year-old actor could get up to 30 years behind bars.
BRIAN MCMONAGLE, ATTORNEY FOR BILL COSBY: He has maintained his innocence. He stands here today maintaining that innocence.
CASAREZ (voice-over): Will the prosecution be able to prove guilt? There is no known forensic evidence, and only one other accuser will testify. But they do have Cosby's own words. In late April, the Judge decided to allow in his deposition testimony about Quaaludes.
On the first day of trial, America's dad showed up with one of his T.V. daughters. On Cosby's left, actress, Keisha Knight Pulliam. Also on hand for the first day of trial, Lili Bernard.
BERNARD: I'm here as a show of support and solidarity. And prayer, a lot of prayer. I'm praying a lot.
CASAREZ (voice-over): Praying for Andrea Constand who took the stand on day two, speaking publicly for the first time. She calmly testified Cosby gave her three pills, which made her incapable of fighting off an assault.
CASAREZ (on camera): On cross-examination, the defense was quick to point out inconsistencies. When Constand first spoke with Canadian police, she said she had never
been with Cosby alone before or after the alleged assault, and it all happened following a dinner with other people. Constand acknowledged those statements were wrong. And she testified that if she said them, it was because she was nervous.
CASAREZ (voice-over): The defense hit hard, pointing out not only Constand's inconsistencies, but behavior that some may find puzzling.
MCMONAGLE: After, and I stress after, this so-called incident, the complainant continued to contact Mr. Cosby. The complainant accepted a dinner invitation from Mr. Cosby. The complainant returned to Mr. Cosby's home.
CASAREZ (voice-over): All true, says Constand. The question now, what will the jury make of it?
Unlike Andrea Constand, Lili Bernard is unlikely to ever get her day in court.
DAN STORMER, ATTORNEY FOR LILI BERNARD: Unless we come up with a new theory, she is barred.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What do we want?
BERNARD: Justice!
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When do we want?
BERNARD: Now!
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What do we want?
BERNARD: Justice!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CASAREZ (voice-over): Barred because statute of limitation laws for rape limited the amount of time she had to report her allegations. Bernard and other Cosby accusers helped get rid of those laws for new cases of rape in California.
Nearly all of the Cosby accusers are in the same boat as Lili Bernard, which is why some have turned to civil court. Among them, Barbara Bowman. She is now one of seven accusers jointly suing Cosby for defamation. He is countersuing for the same reason.
CASAREZ (on camera): Many of Bill Cosby's accusers have chosen to sue him now. You have not. Why?
THOMAS: To me, that plays right into everybody's argument about what we all are out for. We're out for fame or we're out for money.
CASAREZ (on camera): And to people who might point to all of those who have sued and said, that's it, gold diggers?
THOMAS: Well, I know several of them. He ruined lives. I know that some of them are in desperate need.
CASAREZ (voice-over): Heidi Thomas says Bill Cosby did not ruin her life.
THOMAS: People have said, are you angry? Do you forgive him? I forgive him. I think he's sick. Does that make it something he shouldn't be punished for? No.
CASAREZ (on camera): Do you want to see Bill Cosby convicted?
BERNARD: Of course, yes, I do.
CASAREZ: And you want him to go to prison?
BERNARD: Yes, I want him to go to prison, absolutely. Absolutely! And not just because he deserves it, but that so all the other rapists can know that no matter how much money you have, that there is no amount of money that can keep you out of jail.
CASAREZ: What should the legacy of Bill Cosby be?
THOMAS: Oh, wow. Complicated. I looked up to him because he's brilliant. He's hysterically funny. He finds what is real and he finds the humor in it. He uses that same intelligence as a predator.
So what is his legacy? For me, he is a brilliant predator. That's how I will remember him. I don't know how other people will.
