Janice Dickinson Testifies Against Cosby: 'Here Was America's Dad on Top of Me'
One of Bill Cosby's most famous accusers took the stand as a prior bad acts witness on Thursday.
April 12, 2018 at 01:51 PM
5 minute read
Bill Cosby arrives for his sexual assault trial April 12, 2018, at the Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown, Pa. (Photo: Matt Slocum/AP)
At Bill Cosby's retrial Thursday, prosecutors wrapped up witness testimony from five women who have brought sexual assault accusations against the comedian, priming them to hear from Andrea Constand, the accuser behind the criminal charges at the heart of the case.
Cosby is being retried on aggravated indecent assault charges for allegedly sexually assaulting Constand in 2004. Prosecutors have now called four of Cosby's accusers as prior bad acts witnesses, including on Thursday, Las Vegas teacher Lise-Lotte Lublin and model Janice Dickinson.
Constand is set to testify Friday.
Thursday afternoon, prosecutors called Lublin, a teacher from Las Vegas—the fifth and final prior bad acts witness.
Lublin said she took up modeling in the 1980s to pay her way through school, and Cosby expressed interest in being her mentor. She said that at their second meeting, Cosby was giving her improv lessons.
He told her to take a drink to relax, she said, and then he offered her one more. After that he told her to sit between his legs and stroked her hair. She was woozy, she said, and could not stand.
Lublin said she blacked out shortly after that, and woke up at home what felt like two days later.
She said she didn't usually drink but did at Cosby's urging “because he was America's dad.”
It wasn't until years later, she said, that Lublin “realized something else had happened after I blacked out.” She saw other women making accusations in the press, she said, and their stories sounded familiar.
“I don't know what it was but I believe I know what it was,” Lublin said. “There was a purpose for me to black out.”
Earlier in the day, Dickinson said she was having dinner with Cosby in 1982 during a visit in Lake Tahoe when she complained of menstrual cramps. In response, he offered her a little blue pill, she said, and she took it.
After taking the pill, she became “woozy” and “dizzy,” she said.
Cosby then led Dickinson to a hotel room, she said. She sat on the bed, and shortly later he climbed on top of her, and she realized she was immobilized, Dickinson testified. Cosby had sex with her, she said.
“Here was America's dad on top of me, a happily married man of five children and I remember thinking how wrong it was, how very, very wrong it was,” she said.
Dickinson said she woke up the next day with semen between her legs and anal pain. She accompanied Cosby to Bill Harrah's home, she said, where she confronted him about what happened the night before.
“I said, do you want to explain what happened last night because that wasn't cool. He said nothing,” she said. “He looked at me like I was crazy.”
Dickinson also testified as to why she did not report the alleged incident to the police.
“I was working, very successfully working after struggling. … I finally made it,” she said. “I had clients that would not appreciate the fact that I had been raped and gone to the police to report the crime that took place against me, and I felt victimized, and that's why I didn't go to the police.”
On cross-examination, many of defense attorney Tom Mesereau's questions centered on a book about Dickinson's life, which she said was ghostwritten. On direct examination, Dickinson had said her publisher and ghostwriter “took poetic license” with her description of the alleged rape because “it would never get past Cosby's legal team.”
Mesereau pressed her about the difference between the book and her account in court. She said she participated in the book publishing process because she needed the paycheck.
“I wasn't under oath when I wrote that book,” Dickinson said. “Today I'm under a sworn bible and I wouldn't be here if it wasn't to tell my true story.”
Earlier Thursday, accuser Janice Baker-Kinney finished her testimony, speaking in part about her conversations with her sister and a friend after the alleged assault. Prosecutors asked about the culture at the time.
“Anyone of a certain age would probably remember that there was no thing as acquaintance rape that we knew of, there was no thing we knew of as date rape … it just wasn't the norm to come forward,” Baker-Kinney said.
Jurors also heard testimony from accusers Chelan Lasha and Heidi Thomas earlier this week.
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