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Bill Cosby's trial for sexual assault got underway today in Philadelphia.
* He entered on the arm of his
Cosby Show daughter, Keshia Knight-Pulliam (Rudy). She told reporters "It's easy to support when things are good, but true family is who shows up when things aren't good...Everyone goes through adversity, everyone's human. It's not my job to decide guilt or innocence."
* Asked how she would respond to victims who felt she shouldn't be supporting him, Knight-Pulliam said "I'm very sensitive to that, as a woman, a feminist...in no way do I condone the charges, the behavior, what have you...but this is not the man I have ever seen..The man I've known as a child was witty and smart and philanthropic and full of advice...my heart goes out to any woman who's been sexually assaulted, but it's also about ensuring that an innocent man isn't treated as a guilty person."
* TV wife and son Phylica Rashad and Malcolm Jamal Warner were not in the courtroom today, despite reports that they would be at the trial. His real-life wife, Camille, was not there, either.
Opening statements and testimony behind cut for
* Prosecutor Kristen Gibbons-Feden said in her opening statement, "“Celebrities, as a whole, we celebrate them. They become larger than life...we feel that we know them, who they are. And that’s especially true of figures like Bill Cosby, also known as Dr. Huxtable. That man, in that illusion, of all those roles he played on television, that illusion was shattered.”
* Defense lawyer Brian McMonagle said in his opening statements that “sexual assault is a terrible crime” but that “a false accusation of sexual assault is also a terrible crime... What do you see? A brilliant comedian? A flawed husband whose infidelity has made him vulnerable to these actions? He might be like someone you know, who has achieved greatness yet has suffered an indescribable tragedy. What I hope you’ll see is just a man.” McMonagle also told jurors that Cosby is blind. “Unfortunately, when he looks back, he can’t see. I am his eyes in the courtroom.”
* McMonagle continued: “After the so-called paralyzation and drugging and assault, there were 72 phone calls. She called him 53 times...She called him continuously. They spoke, at times, for 30 or 40 minutes at a pop...You will never see Mr. Cosby under oath running from anything...Under oath, he says, ‘I used Quaaludes back three decades ago, when it was fashionable to do so, with consenting women.’”
* Witness Kelly Johnson, an assistant at William Morris, took the stand and sobbed while testifying that in 1996, Cosby gave her a pill that he said would "relax" her but instead knocked her out, and that he then sexually assaulted her.
* McMonagle aggressively cross-examined Johnson, suggesting she used drugs in the 90s (she denied it) and snapping that she had "selective amnesia". He said that she gave different details in a 1996 harassment deposition against William Morris, including saying at the time that the assault happened in 1990, six years earlier than she is now testifying.
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