Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Bill Cosby’s sex assault trial & who hit Spider Man’s mom?

Episode Date: June 5, 2017

The sex assault trial of Bill Cosby is underway in Pennsylvania with two women set to testify about allegations the comedian drugged and raped them. Nancy Grace talks with lawyer Randy Kessler about what to expect in the trial. Alan Duke also explains why he went to Los Angeles police with photos showing the wife of Marvel superhero creator Stan Lee injured in an alleged elder abuse assault. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. February 2004. Cosby is charged with felony aggravated indecent assault. This is Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Cosby has denied wrongdoing and says their encounter was consensual. Preying upon and exploiting my vulnerabilities he then drugged and raped me. The 79 year old has been accused by more than 50 women of drugging and or sexual misconduct. I've never seen anything like this. Bill Cosby will not take the witness stand. Judge is only allowing one other accuser to take the stand. He pushed a pillow into my face to silence my screams and because I was incapacitated with the drugs that he had surreptitiously slipped into my sparkling apple cider I thought I was going to die. Funny man, and I am totally saying that with air quotas,

funny man and fallen star heads back to his hometown of Philadelphia for the beginning of a sex assault trial and the possibility of 10 years behind bars. And now, which is very unusual, no sign of his wife who has stood by him from the get-go. Of course, I'm talking about comedian Bill Cosby. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us today. Joining us, special guest Randy Kessler. Randy Kessler, author of a brand new book, Divorce, Protect Yourself, Your Kids, and Your Future, and law school trial professor at Emory Law School in the litigation division. Also with me, the Duke, Alan Duke, and newbie Jackie Howard joining in. let's talk about Bill Cosby flying his private jet. Mm-hmm. I don't think they have those in Quantico.

Legendary TV comic Cosby takes his private jet from Massachusetts to Pennsylvania, getting ready for his rape. There. I said it. Mm-hmm. I said it. Everybody sugarcoats that rape trial. And if you see the pictures of all the women that claims he raped them, it's overwhelming. His real wife, Camille, and his TV wife from the Cosby show have been by his side from the get-go.

Camille not seen this time. I guess, Randy Kessler, he's going to pretend he's blind again, right? Look, who am I to judge? Do I know if he's blind? You know, if there's any doubt about it, he better be ready to prove it so the jury doesn't think he's putting one over on him. But that's a dangerous thing if you're really pretending and you really get called out on that. Everyone on the jury might know somebody who is, and that could be the end of the case. Randy, you just gave me a great idea.

You said that's something that would have to be proved to a jury. So if Bill Cosby, in answer to these rape charges, these sex assault charges, gets in front of the jury and pretends to be blind again, what the prosecution can do if they're thinking quickly, and this is the kind of thing they've got to prepare ahead of time, is to bring in the examples that I've seen in the media where he acts blind in court, and then when he leaves, he walks up the steps and down the steps of his private plane unaided. He grabs, let's go, grabs the railing up and down the steps. He can clearly see what he's doing.

He looks around and talks to people. He makes all sorts of gestures and movements indicating he can see. Because, Randy, listen, if this guy couldn't see, if he was really blind, I wouldn't be, I would not be making an issue about it. I agree. You know, he's probably not going to take the witness stand, right? So even if he doesn't, he's still putting on a show. He's walking in with a cane, looking as if he can't see. And if they can find a creative way to show that, to just get it in front of the jury somehow, some way, the jury is going to pick up on that subtle clue.

They pick up on things. And I'd much rather lead a horse to water than dunk their heads in it. That's a good saying. I'm totally stealing it. It's mine now. Okay, better to lead a horse to water than dunk their head in it. Okay, Kessler, you're giving me two awesome ideas this morning. Everybody, we're talking about the internationally known comedian, movie star, TV star, Bill Cosby, who is now finally facing the music.

As my grandmother used to say, you dance to the music, now it's time to pay the fiddler. The way that these assaults went down, Alan Duke, are that, or the accusations are that he would drug his victims after kind of getting to know them, for the most part. It didn't happen the same way every time with a Quaalude. And then when they are in a semi-conscious state, would rape them. And it's not the word of just one woman. One woman would probably lose this legal battle and did lose this legal battle. There had to be many of them. And now I'm talking in the range of 40 or 50 of them with essentially the same story, Alan. The first allegation started in the 60s and went all the way up to the 2000s. He's already

admitted in a deposition that he used Benadryl and Quaaludes, or at least gave them to women. The big question here is just one specific case in Pennsylvania. Did he sexually assault this woman? But the cases range, I counted at least 40 women, several of whom I personally interviewed. His accuser, Andrea Constant, alleges he drugged her and raped her during an encounter at his home in Philly back in 2004. And this is no gold digger. She was on staff working for the women's basketball team at Temple University at the time this happened. And you know what I've noticed, Randy? Randy Kessler joining us, new author and professor of litigation at Emory University.

Randy, I've noticed that all of his victims, it's not like he approaches them on the street on some back alley and knocks them out and has sex with them or drags them off behind a dumpster like the Stanford rapist. He knows these people. These are people that he has business ties or social ties with, and he uses that relationship to be around them and then rape them according to the complaint. That makes it for a much harder case, right? I mean, there's the issue, the whole defense is consent.

And someone knew him, they came to his room, you know, old-fashioned people are going to say, well, they knew what they're getting into and they're going to victim blame. But it is a more defensible case than someone who goes into a bar, finds someone they don't know, drugs them with a rupee on the bar, and then takes them home unconscious. This is a much different case and it's a much harder case. And candidly, that's why it's a more interesting case in the media, because it's not a clear cut, 100% slam dunk victory for the prosecution. Now, hold on, because he gave a deposition, which had been sealed up until recently, and then it got unsealed after a request by the AP.

And in his deposition, under oath, it's so creepy. He describes how he would invite young models or flight attendants, waitresses, actresses to meet him and would ply them with pills and alcohol, and then they would, quote, have sex. Now, the women don't say that's what it was. But he admits, Randy, that he gave them drugs and alcohol and then, as he said, had sex with them. He refers to them as liaisons, liaisons. Other people would refer to it as a felony, Randy Kessler. I agree, and it's not excusable, but, you know, we are not in his world,

and, you know, he may have been normalized to that behavior. That may be the world he lived in where it just happened among his peers, among his friends, and he didn't think he was doing anything wrong. Does that mean he lacked the intent? Probably not. He probably still gets convicted on that. But it's certainly, you know, we are not in his shoes and we do not know in those times what things were like. People that are in his position have things thrown at them. They have money thrown at them, people begging to be around them. So it may have played to his head and he may have thought it was okay. That that doesn't make it okay and that may make it harder for him to defend himself 50 times not only that randy i yeah that's what makes it normal when you do

something over and over you start to forget that it's not right here's another issue that should crop up in the trial cosby and or his agents offered this woman, as they did other women, money for, quote, school when her mother called to confront him about the rape in January 2006. And she said, according to Cosby under oath, your apology is enough. They didn't take any money. Okay, he offered money. Also, this mom is expected to testify and describe the changes she saw in her daughter that year, the way that her behavior changed, which, as you know, Randy, you and I both have tried so many rape cases, child molestation cases, battery cases. The victim's behavior often changes. I think you're right. We'll see what happened now. So what do you expect in the trial? Well, first of all, I mean, first of all, people don't forget this stuff. People don't just get

over it. And that's why you hear about other victims that want to be there. They want to stare him down for something that happened in the 1960s. This is long-held. This is hard stuff to overcome. I think that's going to be a lot of the back story. Does the jury know who those people in the audience are? That may affect it. I think the jury is going to have a hard time being as outraged as we all have been for the last year because after a while the news plays down. Other things come to the news.

There's a problem when you say something over and over and over, a.k.a. O.J. Simpson. You start to get normalized to the fact that this happened in the past. I still think it's a conviction. But an old man sitting there with a cane, you can't get away from the sympathy factor and the emotion factor. Let him live out the rest of his years in peace. It's going to be part of the mindset of some of the jurors. It's inescapable.

Well, another thing you mentioned, O.J. Simpson, there's a so-called O.J. hangover effect. O.J. hangover effect. People are worried that there will be a media frenzy and that the judge, like Lance Ito did, will allow a lot of showboating, a lot of BS in the courtroom, and the evidence will not be presented fairly. The jury in Cosby's case, seven men, five women, in Allegheny County are going to be bussed in from Pittsburgh to decide the case. It's going to be in Montgomery County that's just outside Philly. We do not, as Alan Duke correctly pointed out, expect Cosby to take the stand, which, you know, Randy, the judge is going to instruct the jury that the defendant does not have to take the stand,

can plead the Fifth Amendment, right to remain silent, and that they are not to infer or conclude anything as a result of his silence. But, and the state cannot comment on silence. But, I mean, I'm telling you, if this wasn't true, why not take the stand and tell what really happened that night? Boy, don't you wish you could have said that as a prosecutor a hundred times. Man, do I. Don't I really?

You know, but you know, there's a lot with what's not said. And, you know, people in the jury are going to wonder that. And even though the defense can say all day long and the judge can instruct them that you can't infer anything from that, you're right, that's just human nature. And it's a jury of humans, not robots. We're not a jury of technological computers. They're going to wonder, if it wasn't true, why don't you defend your honor? Why don't you get up and say it's not true?

But, you know, those defense lawyers, that's what they do morning, noon, and night. They're very, very good at explaining that's the system we live in. You cannot hold it against them. And, you know, if they follow the law, they should not hold it against them. Well, let me ask you this. Do you think there will be, Randy, any similar transactions introduced, i.e., 13 other women out of this approximately 50 women have signed on to support Constat in her claim, to support her lawsuit saying Bill Cosby also molested, raped them. What do you think? Do you think other similar transactions will come in to prove modus operandi, course of conduct, frame of mind?

What do you think? My understanding is I thought only one was going to be allowed to testify. But, you know, it's been in the press so much. I mean, you'd have to be living under a rock. And, you know, you've got 12 jurors. So if one of them has heard about it, then they've all heard about it. Because when they deliberate, they're going to say she's not the only one. If she was the only one, it's a lot harder to believe.

I think you're right. I think you're right, Randy. I think that so far, one other accuser is going to be allowed. The DA, Kevin Steele, will bring in one other woman victim to show this was a, quote, signature crime pattern. Now, this woman they're bringing in worked for Cosby's agent at William Morris and says Cosby drugged her and raped her in 1996 at an L.A. hotel. She's going to be testifying.

So that makes the state's case a lot stronger in my mind, although Kahnstadt, I don't really think, needs any shoring up. I think she can carry the day all on her own. Okay, here you go. Go on. I'm sticking my neck out. I say he's going to be convicted. Kessler?

Boy, I think it depends on these witnesses, you know, and it's sort of fascinating. No, Kessler, no, no. You've got to go one way or the other. Conviction, no conviction. Boy, I'm not there. I think it's going to be a close call. I think it's going to be a close call. I think it's going to be a hung jury. I think there's going to be somebody that still loves him enough to think he couldn't do it.

Hung jury. All right, hung jury. All right, Duke. Yeah, hung jury. I don't see them convicting this man. I just do not see that. All right, and here in the studio with me is Jackie. Jackie, conviction, no conviction.

Conviction. Okay, the women are saying conviction. The men are wimping out, claiming hung jury. Okay, speaking of wimpy men, I took the children to see Wonder Woman last night. It is awesome.

It is awesome. It is awesome. I didn't even want to leave. And when I left, I lassoed like four guys and dragged them through the parking lot in the back of my minivan. It was so great. Now, hold on. And you know, another thing I took them to see, I took them to see Pirates of the Caribbean, expecting it to be horrible after reading all the reviews. It was great. It was one of the best Pirates of the

Caribbean that there have been. And it's not just me. My two nine-year-olds agreed. Okay? So there. Now, I don't know how I got onto that, Kessler. Kessler, have you seen any of the movies I'm talking about? Have you taken your kids to see that? Anything?

No. Or are you just a bad parent? I'm a terrible parent. I wait until a movie is six months old and I watch them on the big screen in my house or on the plane flying around to talk with you on the radio. What about your children? You know what? Don't they get a piece of anything? You have more of a laissez-faire attitude? After six months, everything's new. If you just sort of mindset that you're going to come, we've got too much going on, but I will go see Wonder Woman. My daughter will see Wonder Woman

based on Nancy Grace's recommendation. That was so good. Well, it was good for my twins. Of course, I took them out a couple of times because I thought there might be some S-E-X happening. So I went, oh, no, wait. I think somebody is either going to take their clothes off, say a dirty word, or get killed. So you've got to get out. So they're used to this. So they ran out.

They wait around the corner. And then when I see that's not happening, I say, okay, okay. They did not say a dirty word, take their clothes off, or get their head chopped off so you can come back in. So we only had to do that a few times last night when I thought S-E-X might happen. Blue Apron is the number one fresh ingredient and recipe delivery service in our country. Blue Apron's mission is to make incredible home cooking accessible to everyone. Blue Apron achieves this by supporting a more sustainable food system, setting the very highest standards for ingredients. Now,

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This case involves one of the most beloved figures in entertainment, and that is Stan Lee. He is the founder of Marvel Comics, co-creator of Spider-Man, Incredible Hulk, all of those incredible characters and franchises. I've known Stan Lee now for, I guess, seven, eight, nine years. Suddenly in my text messages about two weeks ago, some photos appeared and I knew it to be Stan's wife, Joan. She's 95 years old. And I saw them and they were of her sitting, looking very sad and bruised. And then I checked in,

did my investigation and found out. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, Alan, Alan saying breathed is not really doing it justice.

The photos of this little lady, she's very slight. You know, my mom, it was now 80 something. It'ssomething, it's gotten so much worse since my dad passed away, you know, almost two years ago. And Alan, you helped me get through that. She's so tiny and so frail. And this little lady you're talking about looks like if a good wind came along, it would pick her up and fly her away. She is totally covered.

She's covered. Her skin, Randy, her skin literally looks purple and black. Her skin. She's so bruised. On her arms and her legs. You can't even see her skin tone. I don't even know what skin color she is, because she is nothing. Very white British. Awful. Awful. What happened, Alan?

They were sent to me, and I talked to two people who said that they were witnesses to the event where she was injured. The witnesses, well, my first thing was, what do I do with this? I mean, my first instinct, of course, was to talk to you, Nancy. So I sent them to you and let you look at them. And your advice to me was go to the LAPD immediately, which is what I did. Because it's alleged allegations of elder abuse. Sometimes if someone... That is certainly putting perfume on the pig. You know, Randy, I've seen this so many times in court. Why do we say assault instead of rape? Why do we say elder abuse instead of beat the crap out of, nearly killed? I mean, because when you beat an elderly a little bitty elderly

lady like this that could kill them you got to be careful with the terminology too because you don't want to be the one saying something that's wrong we're careful in america we don't jump to conclusions and you know those terms are very special and when you actually have proof of that then you should use those terms but you know i'm not judging until i see the facts and that's just the way i've been taught and raised in the law. Well, all I know, I don't know who did it or why they did it. But I know based on those photos that Alan Duke showed me that this lady was beaten severely. OK, that's what I know.

That's all I know right now. The allegation by two witnesses that I've spoken with is that she it it was actually three years ago, April of 2014, that it was her daughter, 67 year old daughter, who threw her up against a glass door. I don't know this to be true. I'm telling you what witnesses told me. And this I took to the LAPD. And I do know for a fact, and contrary to some reporting in the media, that the LAPD is currently investigating this as an elder abuse case. But what I wanted to do was to talk today to make clear everyone knows that the witnesses did not come forward with this we did me and you nancy grace came forward with this because if you you cannot unsee these photos you cannot forget about them well the other thing is we didn't come forward with it to and we did not do a story on it. You got the photos, you asked questions about it, and you went to the LAPD. We did not put this on Crime Online. We didn't talk about it on the podcast, nothing.

This was strictly to try and help the woman, as we do with a lot of cases that we never consider putting on the podcast or on the website. I really want to help this lady. That's what I really want to do. And Alan, I mean, if it hadn't been for you, it would never have gone to the police ever. When you are wealthy and powerful, sometimes A, you get the worst medical care and B, sometimes you get the worst elder care. We've had these other cases of Mickey Rooney and Casey Kasem where there have been allegations of elder abuse because people are concerned if they report it, they will lose their jobs or their position or their opportunity to be close to this celebrity.

And I'm not saying that that's the case here, but it is something that I fear is a problem in Hollywood is a lot of stuff doesn't go reported because people don't want to destroy relationships. For some reason, the LAPD leaked this to the media and gave them some wrong information. It was us who reported it, not that former business partner of Stanley. I just want to make that clear. Where does it stand? I mean, frankly, I don't give a flying fig who reported it at this juncture, except that I'm proud of you for doing the right thing. And honestly, when you asked me what should I do if you hadn't reported it, Alan, I didn't tell you then.

But I would have thought so much less of you if you had not reported it. And I was just standing by thinking, wondering what you were going to do. And then the very next time I talked to you, you told me that you had. I'm just really proud. You know, a lot of people wouldn't do that. The day I went down to the LAPD to report this, I knew I was going to lose some friends, and I think I have lost some friends in Hollywood by reporting this, but that's so be it. But it was the day that we talked about Adrian Jones. The day that we talked about the, quote, boy who was fed to the pigs.

His uncle allegedly saw the abuse over years and didn't report it. This boy who was starved and beaten. His stepmom and dad are in prison for a long time, let's hope now. Social service workers didn't do their job. And the boy died despite a lot of red flags. And that was very heavy in my mind that I don't want this to be a situation like Adrian Jones. A 95-year-old woman is like a seven-year-old child as far as defenselessness. And we have to protect them. The LAPD. Is that her age? Ellen, is that her age? 95. She's the most, yes, she's the most incredible, wonderful woman I've, oh, to hear her voice, her British accent. And you know, Stan, of course, is a beloved legend in the entertainment industry.

And I could not unsee these photos. Okay, wait a minute. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait. Okay, hold on. Jackie, do you know the answer to this? Did the creator of Marvel Comics, it's his wife we're talking about, that it was beaten so badly,

not by him, by somebody else that alan reported allegedly allegedly allegedly allegedly okay allegedly it's all alleged nothing's been proven we saw the photos alan went to the police okay does that include wonder woman is Is Wonder Woman a Marvel? I don't believe so. Randy, what's the other one? You two make me think of the nerds that would totally know all this trivia. You know what? Never mind.

Jackie's looking it up on Google. That's on the same page with Batman. I think Wonder Woman and Batman are the same company, but no. It is with Batman and I think Thor and Iron Man. I know this, all this because of the trailer.

It's going to be a new movie called. But this guy, I mean, you think it only happens, this elder abuse, domestic abuse, child abuse, blah, blah, blah. It only happens to a certain segment, say an uneducated segment or a poor segment or an economically beleaguered segment of our population. This is the founder of the Marvel comic series. He created this or amassed it. And he's 95. And these are the allegations. Oh, DC Comics, she's saying, Jackie's saying.

This is proof that if these allegations are true, and they're just allegations, I'll say it for the five millionth time. If they are true, it's proof that this type of abuse spans every aspect, every echelon of our society. Okay, I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Signing off, I want to thank Jackie Allen, our guest and longtime friend, Atlanta lawyer Randy Kessler, author of a new book. What's the name of your book, Randy? Divorce, Protect Yourself, Your Kids, and Your Future. Oh, dear.

You know, sadly, there's an alternative to divorce, and it's murder, as I tell my husband all the time. But, you know, all my good ideas about how to kill him I've used in my books and my Hallmark movies, so I better get thinking, people. Nancy Grace, Crime Stories, signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.