Bill Cosby’s defense attorney tore into his client’s accuser, Andrea Constand, on Tuesday during closing arguments at the comedian’s retrial, calling her a “pathological liar.”
Speaking to the jury, Tom Mesereau said that the case has no forensic evidence, likening it to a he-said, she-said situation. Mesereau then went on to detail multiple lies that he accused Constand of telling about her relationship with Cosby, including, Mesereau said, that she was dishonest about how much she contacted Cosby after the alleged 2004 assault.
Mesereau also discussed the $3.38 million settlement Cosby paid to Constand stemming from her civil case against him, saying the comedian “thought he was paying for peace.” Adding that Constand’s parents received money as part of the settlement agreement, Mesereau characterized it as highway robbery.
During Tuesday’s closing arguments, Kathleen Bliss, another of Cosby’s defense attorneys, dug into multiple Cosby accusers who took the stand during the retrial, including Janice Dickinson, who Bliss painted as a “failed starlet” and “aged-out model.” When she testified, Dickinson said that she wanted to include her story of Cosby allegedly raping her in her memoir “No Lifeguard on Duty,” which ultimately did not include the accusation. During closing arguments, Bliss opined of Dickinson, “It sounds as though she slept with every single man on the planet.”
Bliss also discussed defense witness Marguerite Jackson, who worked with Constand at Temple University, who testified that Constand told her that she could get money from falsely accusing a high-profile person of assault. Bliss told the jury that, with Jackson’s testimony, the case was “over.”
During Tuesday’s arguments, Camille Cosby, the comedian’s wife of more than five decades, was in attendance.
Cosby is being re-tried on three counts of aggravated indecent assault, stemming from former Temple University employee Constand’s accusation that the comedian molested her in 2004 at his home outside of Philadelphia.
Cosby’s initial trial in the matter ended in a mistrial in July 2017 after the jury was unable to reach a verdict following five days of deliberations.