The Latest: Jurors hearing Cosby’s quaalude testimony

NORRISTOWN, Pa. (AP) — The Latest on Bill Cosby’s sexual assault retrial (all times local):

11:10 a.m.

Jurors are hearing Bill Cosby’s deposition testimony about giving quaaludes to women before sex.

Cosby made the damaging admission when he testified in 2005 as part of his chief accuser’s civil lawsuit against him. Prosecutors won the right to introduce it to the jury at his sexual assault retrial. A police detective is reading his testimony to the jury Wednesday.

In the deposition, Cosby says he gave quaaludes, a now-banned sedative that was a popular party drug in the 1970s, to women he wanted to have sex with “the same as a person would say, ‘Have a drink.'”

Cosby is charged with drugging and molesting a former Temple University women’s basketball administrator at his suburban Philadelphia home. He says he gave her cold pills and that their sexual encounter was consensual.

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8:45 a.m.

Bill Cosby has arrived at a suburban Philadelphia courthouse for the eighth day of his sexual assault retrial.

As the 80-year-old comedian arrived Wednesday morning, spokesman Andrew Wyatt spoke to reporters and blasted the testimony from a police sergeant and detective at Tuesday’s trial.

He says that prosecutors were using “tools of incompetence to build monuments of nothingness.” Wyatt says Cosby’s defense thinks the case should be dismissed.

A police sergeant testified Tuesday that a suburban Philadelphia prosecutor closed the original 2005 probe hours after investigators met to discuss leads that needed to be followed up.

Jurors heard from a police interview in which Cosby acknowledged fondling his chief accuser’s breasts and genitals after giving her pills.

Jurors could soon hear explosive 2005 testimony about giving quaaludes to women before sex.

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12:55 a.m.

Jurors could soon hear Bill Cosby’s explosive testimony about giving quaaludes to women before sex.

Prosecutors are expected to read a transcript of the 2005 testimony as early as Wednesday.

They’re saving for the very end of their case Cosby’s own words about using the 1970s party drug “the same as a person would say, ‘Have a drink.'”

Cosby’s old admissions about quaaludes have taken on new significance at the comedian’s sexual assault retrial in suburban Philadelphia after a half-dozen women testified that he drugged and violated them.

Cosby gave the deposition as part of a lawsuit chief accuser Andrea Constand filed against him. He settled in 2006 for nearly $3.4 million.

The Associated Press doesn’t typically identify people who say they’re victims of sexual assault unless they grant permission, which Constand has done.