Lawyers for Bill Cosby have released part of his wife’s February deposition from a civil defamation suit brought by seven women against the comedian.
Camille Cosby revealed in the deposition, which was released Monday in court filings, that she has never read a criminal complaint brought late last year against her husband.
Cosby is charged in Pennsylvania with aggravated indecent assault, a felony. The charge stems from an alleged sexual assault reported in 2004 by former Temple University employee Andrea Constand, according to her attorney. Cosby has described the encounter as consensual.
Constand initially pursued civil action against Cosby, which was settled in 2006. A deposition that he gave in 2005 was obtained by CNN last year. It reveals that Cosby, who is now 78, admitted that he gave sedatives to women he was planning to have sex with and that he tried to hide affairs from his wife.
In addition to not reading the criminal complaint against her husband, Camille Cosby revealed she hasn’t read her husband’s admissions made in that 2005 deposition.
The 15-page excerpt of Camille Cosby’s deposition were released in a motion to delay the defamation suit against Bill Cosby. Cosby’s team says the deposition of Camille Cosby is proof that the Massachusetts civil suit should be delayed until after Cosby’s Pennsylvania criminal trial is finished.
Cosby’s attorneys assert, among other arguments, that the civil case overlaps with the Constand case and that “there is a substantial risk that discovery … could be used against (Cosby) in the criminal case.”
The plaintiffs in the defamation suit against the comedian have publicly accused Cosby of sexual misconduct and claim that he has publicly defamed them when he responded to their allegations. Cosby responded with a counter defamation suit.
The women are represented by attorney Joseph Cammarata, who agrees that the Pennsylvania criminal case should precede the lawsuit.
Cammarata, however, would like to continue interviewing witnesses. Cosby’s team argues that doing so would cause its client to have the “unfair burden of simultaneous defense” — or defending himself in two related cases at the same time.
“I’m not working for that team,” Cammarata said in a statement to CNN on Tuesday. “The only team I got is the seven ladies that asked me to work for them. I don’t work for anybody else, nor do I do anybody else’s bidding. The criminal case is separate from our case.”
Cosby was charged December 30 in Montgomery County with aggravated indecent assault against Constand, one in a long line of accusers and the first to go to authorities in 2005.
The part of the deposition that was released is a small excerpt of the February deposition of Camille Cosby that took place in a Springfield, Massachusetts, hotel.
The excerpt shows that Camille Cosby, who was represented by four attorneys at the deposition, said she only became aware of Constand’s suit through her husband.
