Revealing Details Surface from Cosby Deposition
ANA CABRERA, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, again. You are in the CNN NEWSROOM. Thanks for spending part of your weekend with us. I'm Ana Cabrera, in for Poppy Harlow. And we begin with yet another bombshell in the scandal surrounding comedian Bill Cosby. Including revelations of affairs with young women, that he admits to drug use, pay off in return for silence. All of this coming straight from Cosby himself. It's including in a 2005 deposition that was first obtained by "The New York Times" and later by CNN, and it stems from a civil lawsuit filed by one of his accusers, Andrea Constand. Now Constand is one of dozens of women who have now publicly accused Cosby of sexual assault over the past several decades. She eventually settled in this case. CNN has reached out to Cosby's publicist who said at this time they have no comment. CNN's Jean Casarez has been going through this deposition, is joining me here now with more. Jean, it's 1,000 pages long. What are you learning?</s>JEAN CASAREZ, CNN LEGAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right.</s>CABRERA: Pull out the most important stuff for us.</s>CASAREZ: Well, you know, we're still looking because there's so much here but I think the headline is that he admits in 2005 as to five -- at least five women having consensual contact involving drugs and women. But I think one thing that might be surprising to some, maybe not, but he readily admits it, that he was so very scared of his wife in all of this. We've got something we want to show you from the deposition. He said -- and this is the attorney for the accuser at that point. "So it would be OK with you if the story was printed in any newspaper other than the 'National Enquirer' so long as it wasn't a tabloid? No, Cosby says. "You didn't want that story to come out at all? Isn't that correct?" Exactly, Cosby says. "And why didn't you want that story to come out?" "I didn't want Mrs. Cosby to know about it and I didn't want it to -- I didn't want more embarrassment than had already hit." He also admits in this that he never went the entire way with women. That he believes sexual intercourse was concerning because somebody could fall in love with him. He didn't want that. It was sexual games, it was playfulness, but he does admit that he paid the women in certain ways. And he was very apparently intent on how to do it so once again his wife wouldn't find out. Let's look at this. He says, "Describe cash payments for school sent surreptitiously so Mrs. Cosby would not know about them. And when the check was written to, you sent cash to, then there was a check that came from William Morris? Did you then send a check to William Morris? Yes. And did that come from your personal account or from the business? That's from my personal account. So was the purpose of that to disguise -- yes. I have to finish my question. Was that to disguise that you were paying the money to -- yes. And the reason you were doing was preventing -- who are you preventing from knowing that? Mrs. Cosby." And so, Ana, he says that -- he thought Mrs. Cosby wouldn't know and this is in regard to Andrea Constand also, that if he would pay for school, he was helping someone. That's what Bill Cosby has been all about.</s>CABRERA: He was a wonderful man in that way. Right.</s>CASAREZ: Helping people, mentoring people. And he also admits that that's how he would find the women that he wanted to have sex with, by mentoring them and acting like he cared a lot more than he admits in here that he really did.</s>CABRERA: Again, he was under oath in this deposition and he says some things that are extremely disturbing. But he doesn't actually admit to rape or even sexual assault in any way?</s>CASAREZ: No crimes at all. And I guess the defense would say he answered the questions with specificity. He answered the question. He didn't lie. He told the honest truth, no matter how bad it was for him.</s>CABRERA: All right. Jean, stay with me. I want to bring in criminal defense attorney, also our HLN legal analyst Joey Jackson. Also joining us criminologist, behavioral analyst and CNN contributor Casey Jordan. Joey, to you first. How damaging is it for Cosby to have this new information out now?</s>JOEY JACKSON, HLN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, it's entirely compellingly damaging. If there are any other adjectives certainly I could use I'd say those two, Ana. But there's two courts, of course, as we know. There's the court of public opinion and then there's that other court where you actually air cases and they are heard in front of judges and juries. And so as it relates to the court of public opinion, I believe this further fuels what everybody believes now or is being led to believe by Cosby himself and that is he was taking advantage of people who look up to him. And I think it's further troubling in the court of public opinion because of the disparate really positions you're in. Whenever you have someone, whether it's a mentor-mentee relationship, a student-teacher relationship, it's not equal. And so certainly you look up to people and you certainly as a result of that want and believe that they are well meaning and then you further introduce the issue of drugs, Quaaludes, that have been introduced to the process and it's damming as to how he could even do this or contemplate doing it. And then, Ana, of course, there's the other court we discussed which is the actual judicial court with judges and juries. And I just think, based upon statute of limitations issues, from a civil perspective, that is suits that relate to money damages or from a criminal perspective that is holding him accountable and being prosecuted and, you know, really affecting his liberty, I think those statute of limitations, to the extent that they're gone, he's largely immune at this point from prosecution. Last point, Ana, and that is of course we know that there's a pending defamation claim and that's joined by three different women. We know that there is, of course, the other claim by Miss Huff in California. But even still with the defamation claims, I think I'm doubtful as to whether they would succeed for a variety of reasons. Defamation really is to affect your reputation. Did it impair your reputation? I think we could all agree that the person with the reputation problem is him. People now, Ana, are largely believing that the victims who came out, their stories have a lot of merit.</s>CABRERA: Right. Right. And, Casey, last hour I spoke to Cosby accuser Barbara Bowman. And I want you to read her quote for how she described Cosby, calling him a classic narcissistic psychopath behavior and what this deposition she says revealed. What do you think?</s>CASEY JORDAN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Yes, I would agree. And if you read the information from the deposition -- and it is over 1,000 pages -- but even the snippets that have been pulled out by the "New York Times" are jaw-dropping. He -- it isn't even that he's owning it, he's just jocular and dismissive and unapologetic. As you read it, you go, how could he be so clueless? This is a little bit beyond he said-she said. He's admitting he got Quaaludes and gave them to women like he would buy them a drink. This was just a normal thing for him to drug women, doesn't -- don't all men do that? He bragged that he's really good at reading body language. And if it wasn't consensual, of course he would know. These women didn't seem to be leaving his room upset or anything like that. So it's the cluelessness of which he almost owns everything, without denying it. He never admits to rape because, in his mind, it's not.</s>CABRERA: So you think he believes what he's saying?</s>JORDAN: That is the most fascinating part of it. It's almost like she's self-inculcated his -- in this very, very kind of misogynous, women are just these mindless sheep that need me, they need mentoring, this idea that when Miss Constand complained, she told her mother, her mother confronted Cosby and said she doesn't want to talk to you and I can't believe you would do that to a young woman. He was like, well, I think if I paid for her college, everything would be OK. And then he started sending her checks. And the interesting thing is, he paid her personally. And when he was asked, what if your wife found out that you were sending checks to this young lady to pay for her tuition, he said, well, I would just say, I'm helping her.</s>CABRERA: I'm helping somebody.</s>JORDAN: I'm helping her out.</s>CABRERA: Right.</s>JORDAN: So the idea that you have sex with somebody, they complained and then you pay them off, to him it's just par for the course.</s>CABRERA: Jean, does this new information, the deposition, open any legal doors?</s>CASAREZ: Well, this is sworn testimony, under oath. It was 10 years ago so it's a ways away. But in all the civil cases, I'm sure that the attorneys for the victims are going to want to get this in because they're statements against his interest.</s>CABRERA: Right.</s>CASAREZ: Right? Against him. And as far as a criminal case, we know there's one investigation ongoing in Los Angeles. We don't know if there'll be criminal charges.</s>CABRERA: Right.</s>CASAREZ: That would be huge, of course. But of course, the prosecutors are reading the thousand pages right now. You can imagine.</s>CABRERA: Right. Joey, that criminal case that Jean just mentioned, in California, apparently it has allegations connected to 2008. In an incident this woman, Chloe Goins, says happened to her at the Playboy mansion. Does this deposition help her case in a criminal court of law?</s>JACKSON: Well, here's the issue. In the event that cases brought forth and potentially it could be very helpful because now you're into the area of his prior conduct which could be admitted in court, Ana, under theories of common plan of scheme, intent, purpose, motivation. The question really about that case, however, is whether it gets to court. Why? Because apparently the allegations concern August 9th, 2008. Cosby's people, number one, say he was never in California at the Playboy mansion, at any party at that time. And number two, there's the question as to whether it's time barred in light of the six-year statute of limitations that exist in California. Apparently she went to the police in January 2015, which it would have exceeded that time and so we'll see whether or not there is some other exclusion as to how or if the police and the prosecution would like to move forward on that matter if there's enough evidence to do so.</s>CABRERA: All right. Joey Jackson, Casey Jordan, Jean Casarez, our thanks to all of you. And still ahead, a slightly rare scene caught on camera. A shark attacking a surfer. And you'll hear from this surfer who kicked and punched his way to safety. Plus a shark expert will weigh in on the best ways to survive such an attack. That's next.