Constand: Unseal deal with 'bullying' Cosby
Andrea Constand has asked a federal judge to lift her 2006 confidentiality agreement with Bill Cosby, saying the entertainer has repeatedly violated it and is now trying to use it to intimidate her and other witnesses in his sexual assault case.
Andrea Constand has asked a federal judge to lift her 2006 confidentiality agreement with Bill Cosby, saying the entertainer has repeatedly violated it and is now trying to use it to intimidate her and other witnesses in his sexual assault case.
In court filings this week, Constand's lawyers said a breach-of-contract suit Cosby filed this month, seeking to recoup money he paid her in a civil settlement a decade ago, was only the latest "bullying tactic" by the 78-year-old comedian in multiple cases.
"He is not free to use the court system as a weapon, to intimidate witnesses who will be called to testify against him," lawyers Dolores Troiani and Bebe Kivitz wrote.
They added, "The inescapable message of this lawsuit is that if Andrea Constand, her mother and her counsel testify in the criminal case, Cosby will do his best to misuse the court system to hurt them."
Troiani and Kivitz laid out their arguments Monday in an attempt to persuade a federal judge in Philadelphia to refuse Cosby's request to keep his latest civil action sealed.
Filed Feb. 1, that lawsuit alleges that Constand, by cooperating with the Montgomery County prosecutors who charged Cosby, breached an agreement she signed a decade ago to settle her own lawsuit against the entertainer.
The terms of that confidential settlement have never been fully disclosed, but Cosby's lawyers have said it included a "substantial financial benefit" that they want a judge to order Constand to repay.
Cosby's lawyers did not return calls for comment Tuesday.
In their response Monday, Troiani and Kivitz argued that Cosby's legal team had repeatedly violated the agreement to benefit their client.
"Cosby has used the agreement as a means to intimidate witnesses, to conduct a media blitz in an attempt to sway public opinion while silencing those most knowledgeable about his claims," they wrote. "The only recourse available . . . is a finding that Cosby has forfeited any confidentiality conferred upon him by the agreement."
In their filing, Troiani and Kivitz also highlighted recent legal action by Cosby against other accusers who have sought to challenge him in court. They pointed to countersuits he filed against seven women who together have sued him for defamation in Massachusetts. Each of them says Cosby drugged and assaulted her.
Three of the plaintiffs in that case, Constand's lawyers noted, had agreed 10 years ago to testify as corroborating witnesses in Constand's civil suit and could be called as witnesses if Cosby goes to trial in Norristown.
Montgomery County prosecutors have not said whether those women would play a role in their sexual assault case. Cosby faces a preliminary evidentiary hearing March 8.
The federal judge in Cosby's breach-of-contract suit has called for an April hearing in the case.
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