Cosby trial underway in US

A trial against Bill Cosby is underway in the US.

Cosby, 79, face charges of drugging and sexually assaulting a woman, Andrea Constand, a former employee of Temple University’s basketball program, at his suburban Philadelphia mansion in 2004.

In her opening statement, prosecutor Kristen Feden noted that the Cosby Show star previously admitted under oath that he gave Ms Constand pills and touched her genitals as she lay on his couch.

“She couldn’t say no,” Ms Feden said.

“She can’t move, she can’t talk. Completely paralysed. Frozen. Lifeless.”

Prosecutors had wanted to call as many as 13 women who say Cosby sexually assaulted them, out of more than 60 accusers in all.

But Judge Steven O’Neill, in a victory for Cosby, said the jury could hear only from Ms Constand and Kelly Johnson, who worked for one of Cosby’s agents at the William Morris Agency.

Johnston broke down in tears as she testified that the comedian violated her in the mid-1990s at a hotel bungalow in Los Angeles.

“I felt embarrassed because I had a secret about the biggest celebrity in the world at the time and it was just me, just my word against his,” Ms Johnson said.

“And I was very afraid.”

Ms Constand, 44, is expected to take the stand this week and tell her story in public for the first time.

Cosby’s wife Camille, was not in court. But actress Keshia Knight Pulliam, who played his daughter Rudy on The Cosby Show in the 1980s and ’90s, was at his side as he made his way into the building. She told reporters she was there to support her TV dad.

With Cosby’s reputation already in ruins, the man once known as America’s Dad could get 10 years in prison if convicted.

Source: ABC