Court will hear how Bill Cosby commenced ‘flirtation’

Bill Cosby’s attraction to Andrea Constand began the moment he spied her across a Temple University gym in about 2002. The flirting — some would say grooming — began almost immediately.

When Constand, a Temple women’s basketball staffer, mentioned that her back was bothering her, the 66-year-old comedian offered his “layman’s” fix in the women’s locker room.

“It’s one where she gets on my back with her back and her arms come under mine and I grab her and I say ‘now you relax’,” Cosby said in a 2005 deposition.

“I go up and I come down and I give that jolt and it’s supposed to line the vertebrae.”

The friendship that followed between Temple’s most famous booster and the then-31-year-old employee colours the sex assault prosecution that starts in earnest today, when Cosby’s lawyers will ask a judge to throw out charges stemming from a 2004 encounter at his suburban Philadelphia home.

In Cosby’s mind, Constand had reacted “very, very favourably” to him the day they met at Temple’s arena.

Constand’s lawyers have since pointed out that she is gay and was dating a woman at the time.

Cosby, in the deposition, described at least two separate nights when they engaged in sex play — the first time, after she had four drinks, and the second time, after he gave her unidentified pills.

Cosby said he never drank or did illegal drugs, although he acknowledged getting quaaludes in the 1970s to use on women he hoped to seduce.

The criminal case involves the second night, in January 2004.

Cosby described the “digital penetration” that followed as something of a favour, to help her unwind”.