Andrea Constand writes about Cosby course of, #MeToo in new memoir | Leisure information

By Mitchel On Sep 6, 2021

From MARYCLAIRE DALE, Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA (AP) – Andrea Constand has remained something of a mystery over the years, her sexual assault allegations against Bill Cosby being played in Pennsylvania courts and in public plaza.

The athlete and spiritual seeker became a massage therapist and lived a quiet life with her dogs in Toronto until the case re-emerged in 2015. She had remained largely anonymous during the initial police investigation in 2005 when a local prosecutor denied Cosby’s arrest. And she signed a nondisclosure agreement a year later when she settled her $ 3.4 million lawsuit against the wealthy entertainer.

However, after details of the settlement – including the amount she had received – emerged in court, Constand decided to tell her story in a memoir called “The Moment” released Tuesday. The book lands amid a breathtaking turn of events in the fall.

Cosby, after serving nearly three years in prison, was released in June when the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned his 2018 conviction. The court found that Cosby relied on an alleged promise by a district attorney that he would never be charged when he made an incriminating testimony in Constand’s civil case – only to be later used in two criminal trials against him.

Political cartoons

Prosecutors in suburban Philadelphia will have to decide this month whether to challenge the ruling in the US Supreme Court. Cosby recently turned 84.

“Now that I’ve gotten through another weird twist in this long saga, I realize I can’t let inversions like the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling defeat me. Life is unpredictable. Much is beyond our control. In the end, only luck counts and I am determined to live a happy, meaningful life, ”wrote Constand in a late addition to the book, describing her new job as a sexual assault victim advocate.

She and Cosby first met at Temple University in Philadelphia, where Constand, who played professional basketball in Europe, worked for the women’s basketball team and was a trustee and famous alumnus.

In a statement, Cosby said he fell in love with Constand the first time he saw her at the gym. Constand was half his age and went out with women.

“I knew who he was, of course, but I had never seen The Cosby Show and had no idea how big it was for a celebrity,” she writes.

However, she noted the attention he was being given on campus: “His calls had to be withdrawn immediately, his interest in our new changing room was promptly answered with an offer to visit the facility.”

Nevertheless, she found him “down to earth and sociable”.

She shares the friendship and mentorship that followed, along with what she acknowledges she missed warning signs when Cosby made advances that his lawyers later cited as evidence of an ongoing, friendly relationship.

Their conversations included a shared interest in health and holistic medicine, which she said led them to take the pills he offered one evening in January 2004, assuming they were herbal products.

She soon found that her body was going numb.

“My inability to control my own body was absolutely terrifying. At six feet, I’m the opposite of petite. … I had never felt physically intimidated by anyone or anything before, not even as a child. I was an athlete, ”she writes. “But now I had no control over my limbs.”

Constand gave steady, unemotional testimony to both his first trial in 2017, which ended in a dead end, and a second trial in 2018 when the jury convicted Cosby of substance abuse and injury.

She refused to upset herself, even amid a flurry of hostile questions of defense.

And she stayed silent outside the courtroom, even as she emerged triumphant on April 26, 2018, when Cosby was convicted and a ton of cameras clicked on her.

But she gives a glimpse into her emotions when she describes a secret jury meeting following Cosby’s fall conviction.

“When we hugged, I kept hearing the same words: ‘We always believed you, Andrea.’ Of course, their judgment told me that they had come to the conclusion that my testimony was believable. But it was something to hear the words … that took the wind out of my ears, “she writes.

Constand had never wavered in 2015 when she was asked to put her life on hold for a possible trial when Cosby’s testimony was made public by The Associated Press following a lawsuit. And she agreed to do it again after the first failed attempt. It is not yet clear whether she or the prosecutors will have the stamina for a third round.

Either way, she won’t let any court ruling define her, especially given the progress she is seeing in the #MeToo movement.

While waiting for the jury’s decision in 2018, she wrote: “The outcome of the trial seemed strangely unimportant. It was as if the world had changed again in a much more meaningful way. “

Follow Maryclaire Dale on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Maryclairedale