Bill Cosby Quaaludes Confession: He Got Drugs to Give Women for Sex

Cosby says he never planned to take the drugs himself

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Bill Cosby said in a 2005 deposition that a doctor gave him seven prescriptions for Quaaludes over two to three years to give to women he wanted to have sex with, but said he never gave them to anyone without their knowledge. He also said he never took the drugs himself.

Cosby sometimes put his head in his hands or looked away from the witness stand as his deposition testimony was read in the fifth day of his criminal trial, in which he is accused of drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Costand in January 2004. The prosecution rested its case Friday.

Cosby said he procured the Quaadludes because, “Young people were using them to party with, and I wanted to have them just in case.”

Quaaludes, sometimes called ludes or disco biscuits, gained popularity in the 1960s and ’70s. They can induce drowsiness and slow heart rate and breathing, and overdoses can be lethal.

In the deposition, he said that at one point he gave Quaaludes to a woman named Teresa and that she acted like she was “high.” He also said he hadn’t given them to anyone between 2000 and 2005, and that he did not have any other pills that would have similar effects to those of Quaaludes.

Cosby also said in the deposition he promised to tell Andrea Costand’s mother what kind of pills he gave her on the night Costand says he sexually assaulted her, but later changed his mind because he feared his conversation with her was recorded.

Andrea Costand moved home to her parents after the night she says he assaulted her, and her mother spoke with Cosby by phone about what happened between him and her daughter.

Cosby said in the deposition that he promised to send Gianna Constand information on the pills, but did not share what they were. He said he failed to mail the information because he felt he was being attacked feared his phone call with Costand’s mother, Gianna Costand, was being recorded.

He said he was self-conscious about possible perceptions that “this is a dirty old man with a young girl.”

Cosby said in deposition testimony read Thursday that the three pills he gave Costand were the decongestant Benadryl, and that he cut one pill in two and then gave her another half pill.

But Costand has testified that after she took the pills she felt frozen, and could not stop Cosby as he sexually assaulted her.

Forensic toxicologist Dr. Timothy Rohrig, who said that the effects Andrea Constand said she experienced after taking pills Cosby gave her — rubbery legs, blurred vision —  could have come after taking either Benadryl or Quaaludes.

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