Bill Cosby said in a 2005 legal deposition that he obtained prescriptions of a powerful sedative to give to women he wanted to have sex with, according to documents released Monday in a Pennsylvania court.
The comedian’s testimony was part of a civil suit involving a woman who accused him of drugging her and sexually assaulting her.
At one point, Cosby was asked by the woman’s attorney about his use of prescriptions for the pills, known as Quaaludes.
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“When you got the Quaaludes, was it in your mind that you were going to use these Quaaludes for young women that you wanted to have sex with?” the lawyer asked.
“Yes,” Cosby said, according to the document, which was released after a request by The Associated Press.
Cosby also recalled an encounter in the 1970s in Las Vegas with a woman whose name was redacted in the document. “She meets me back stage. I give her Quaaludes. We then have sex.”
Cosby, now 77, would’ve been 38 or 39 on the date of the incident.
U.S. District Judge Eduardo Robreno explained his decision to unseal the nearly decade-old court documents in a 25-page memorandum obtained by NBC News on Monday. In a scathing order, Robreno wrote that Cosby has “donned the mantle of public moralist and mounted the proverbial electronic or print soap box to volunteer his views on, among other things, childrearing, family life, education, and crime,” and therefore has opened himself up to more intense scrutiny than the average citizen.
Robreno went on to argue that “the stark contrast between Bill Cosby, the public moralist, and Bill Cosby, the subject of serious allegations concerning improper (and perhaps criminal) conduct” was of interest to not just the Associated Press, but the public at large, rejecting Cosby’s attorney’s claims that there was “no legitimate public interest” in the case.
The ruling coming out of Philadelphia has special significance for the embattled entertainer. The city is both his place of birth and the location of his alma mater, Temple University, which he cut ties with late last year amid the resurgence of allegations against him. The Associated Press has previously reported that the 2005 lawsuit was settled with a former Temple employee.
According to a brief filed last month by Cosby’s attorney, a judge in 2005 agreed to a temporary seal of the documents — and as part of the comedian’s settlement with the accuser, an agreement was reached to “keep the discovery from this litigation confidential forever.”
The actor was not charged in connection with these claims and the case was dismissed in 2006. His lawyers had fought the documents’ release, saying it would be “terribly embarrassing.”
Calls to Cosby’s Philadelphia-based attorney by NBC News were not immediately returned.
More than a dozen women have since accused Cosby of sexually assaulting them. Cosby, who has never been charged, denies the allegations, and is trying to get several court cases thrown out.
This article originally appeared on NBCNews.com. Additional reporting by Adam Howard
Tom Winter
Jon Schuppe