UPDATE | Cosby ordered to stand


NORRISTOWN, Pa. (AP) — Bill Cosby ordered to stand trial in Pennsylvania felony sex-assault case stemming from 2004 encounter.

The accuser in the sexual-assault case against Cosby told authorities the comedian violated her after giving her three blue pills that made her dizzy, blurry-eyed and sick to her stomach, her legs "like jelly," according to a police report read in court today.

"I told him, 'I can't even talk, Mr. Cosby.' I started to panic," Andrea Constand, a former Temple University athletic department employee, told police in 2005.

The statement was introduced at a preliminary hearing held to determine whether prosecutors have enough evidence to put the 78-year-old TV star on trial on sexual assault charges that could bring 10 years in prison.

Cosby will stand trial on the charge.

In his own statement to police, also read in court, Cosby portrayed it as consensual sexual activity, saying Constand never said "no" as he put his hand down her pants.

The hearing was not the face-to-face confrontation between accuser and accused that some had anticipated: Constand was not in the courtroom, and the judge ruled she would not have to testify and that prosecutors could instead have her statements to police read into the record.

Cosby's lawyers argued unsuccessfully that that would be hearsay and would deprive him of his right to confront his accuser. Such testimony from law enforcement officers is common practice at preliminary hearings in Pennsylvania, which have a far lower burden of proof than trials.