Judge: Prosecutors can use Bill Cosby's deposition at trial

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Damaging testimony that Bill Cosby gave in an accuser's lawsuit, including admissions that he gave young women drugs and alcohol before sex, can be used at his sex-assault trial, a judge ruled today.

The defense has insisted that Cosby testified only after being promised he would never be charged over his 2004 encounter with accuser Andrea Constand. But his lawyers at the time never had an immunity agreement or put anything in writing.

"This court concludes that there was neither an agreement nor a promise not to prosecute, only an exercise of prosecutorial discretion," Montgomery County Judge Steven O'Neill wrote in his ruling.

Cosby, 79, acknowledged in the 2006 deposition that he had a string of extramarital relationships. He called them consensual, but many of the women say they were drugged and molested. The release of the deposition testimony last year prompted prosecutors to reopen Constand's 2005 police complaint.

Cosby, asked about the 2004 encounter at his home with Constand, described being on his couch and putting his hand down her pants.

"I don't hear her say anything. And I don't feel her say anything. And so I continue and I go into the area that is somewhere between permission and rejection. I am not stopped," he said in his deposition testimony.

Prosecutors describe Constand as being semiconscious after Cosby gave her three unmarked blue pills for stress.