Cosby wants to keep court settlement sealed

PHILADELPHIA: Bill Cosby’s lawyers argued on Tuesday that his admission to using quaaludes in the 1970s doesn’t mean he drugged and sexually assaulted women.
The comments came as the lawyers asked a court to preserve the confidentiality of Cosby’s 2006 settlement in a sexual-battery lawsuit, which the accuser wants unsealed.
Cosby’s lawyers instead attacked the weekend release of his deposition by a court reporting service and said the deposition and other filings unsealed this month have led to erroneous reports that brand Cosby a rapist.
“The media immediately pounced, inaccurately labeling the released testimony as defendant’s ‘confession’ of ‘drugging’ women and assaulting them,” Cosby lawyers Patrick O’Connor and George Gowen wrote. “Reading the media accounts, one would conclude that defendant has admitted to rape. And yet defendant admitted to nothing more than being one of the many people who introduced quaaludes into their consensual sex life in the 1970’s.”
Cosby, who’s 78 years old, has been married for more than half a century.
A federal judge in Philadelphia cited his self-imposed role as a “public moralist” in deciding to release long-sealed documents that contained excerpts from his deposition.
Cosby, who starred as Dr. Cliff Huxtable on “The Cosby Show” from 1984 to 1992, said that he did not take drugs or drink alcohol during the encounters with the women.
“There are countless tales of celebrities, music stars, and wealthy socialites in the 1970’s willingly using quaaludes for recreational purposes and during consensual sex,” his lawyers wrote.