Camille Cosby’s full deposition in the sexual assault case of her husband, comedian Bill Cosby, was made public on Friday, revealing a scathing back and forth by lawyers, but little new information.
In a full transcript of the deposition, Cosby continually refused to answer questions posed by a lawyer for the plaintiffs. She and her lawyer often cited marital privilege, a legal precedent which permits spouses to keep their personal conversations private.
Cosby was deposed on February 22 in a defamation case filed against her husband by seven of the 50 women who have accused him of sexual assault. An excerpt of the deposition was released shortly after, giving a hint of the tense exchange. The full transcript was made public on Friday.
At various points, Cosby refused to say whether she had any understanding of what her husband had said at his own deposition, what she knew about Andrea Constand’s lawsuit and how she had learned it, or Bill Cosby’s use of quaaludes. Cosby responded to most questions by either saying she didn’t know or refusing to answer. Joseph Cammarata, a lawyer representing the women suing Bill Cosby, twice called the judge over Cosby’s refusals.
Much of the deposition is filled with acrimonious back-and-forth exchanges between Cammarata and Monique Pressley, a lawyer for the Cosbys. Pressley repeatedly objected to lines of questioning by Cammarata, frequently claiming marital privilege and putting a halt to the proceedings.
At one point, Cammarata expresses his frustration with Cosby’s refusal to answer questions. “Let me just say one thing just to be clear, Mrs. Cosby, that your refusal to answer as a witness, you can’t just refuse to answer a question,” he said after Cosby refused to answer a question about when she became aware of Constand’s lawsuit against her husband. “If there’s an instruction not to answer and if you want to comply with that, then that’s different.”
At another point, in regards to a line of questioning about whether Cosby believed her husband’s conduct to be deceiving, Pressley accused Cammarata of harassment. “We view [the questions] to be beyond the pale of what is permitted through the rulings of the court,” she said.”If you want to ask the witness about the substantive information which you claim numerous times this witness would have to bear, not her opinion of her husband...then you can ask those questions,” she said.
Cosby was ordered to give testimony in a second deposition, which took place on April 19. The transcript for that deposition has not yet been released.
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