Court records unsealed this week by a federal judge in Philadelphia include an admission by Bill Cosby that he had obtained prescription Quaaludes in the 1970s to give young women prior to having sex with them. Mr. Cosby made the admission in a sex-abuse case that was settled in 2006. The release of this testimony supports the claims of the more than two dozen women who have accused Mr. Cosby of raping or molesting them. Some of these women, who have come forward with their claims in the past year, say Mr. Cosby drugged them first.
Paul J. Cambria, Jr., a nationally known criminal defense attorney, was asked for his analysis of the admission and the release of the records by John Zach and Susan Rose of WBEN. The full interview is available at WBEN’s website.
A damning decade-old disclosure
The court records that include Mr. Cosby’s admission are ten years old. Mr. Cambria was asked if the length of time that has elapsed since the testimony was given would lessen its repercussions for Mr. Cosby. “An admission has no time limit. If he made the admission, it’s good,” Mr. Cambria said. “It can be used any time.”
Commenting about why the court document may have been sealed for a period of time and then unsealed, Mr. Cambria said, “It obviously had to be sealed to protect an underage person, and once he has denied everything, that underage person must have asked the court to unseal the records so that it could become public.”
Speculation about the case
“There wasn’t a clarification there as to what kind of case it was that was unsealed. Was it a case that they obviously sealed because the person was under age? Was it civil? Was it in some way criminal? At this point, I don’t know the answer to that.” Mr. Cambria continued, “It sounds like there was some kind of a hearing or a trial, and he actually admitted to it. Or if it was a civil case, they could have had a deposition and there was an admission during the deposition. But the admission is still good. There’s no time limit on it.”
The show seems unlikely to go on
Discussing the likelihood of Mr. Cosby continuing to give public performances, Mr. Cambria said, “It is really astounding that he can be hired by anyone at any place. It just seems to get worse each and every time, and now if he’s actually admitted it [after] denying that he’s been a part of this, it doesn’t seem like anybody’s going to be hiring him any time soon.”
About Paul Cambria
The chair of Lipsitz Green Scime Cambria’s Criminal Defense Trials and Appeals Practice Area, Mr. Cambria advises clients on criminal trials, criminal appeals, constitutional and First Amendment law, zoning and land use, antitrust, and professional licensing defense. He divides his time between the firm’s offices in Buffalo and Los Angeles.
