The chief accuser at Bill Cosby's sexual assault retrial talked about framing a celebrity before going to police with her allegations in 2005, a key defense witness testified Wednesday as the TV star's lawyers began setting out their case. Marguerite Jackson, an academic adviser at Temple University, said Andrea Constand told her she could fabricate sexual assault allegations and "get that money" from a civil suit, bolstering Cosby's efforts to show Constand made up the allegations against him to extort a big civil settlement, the AP reports. Jackson's account was immediately challenged by prosecutors, who suggested she wasn't on the trip where she says her conversation with Constand took place.
Jackson said that after watching a TV news report about a celebrity who had been accused of sexual assault, Constand told her: "Oh wow, something similar happened to me." Constand said she never reported the assault because her assailant was a "high-profile person" and she knew she couldn't prove it, Jackson testified. Jackson said she encouraged Constand to report it. She told jurors that Constand then switched gears, saying: "No it didn't, but I could say it did. I could say it happened, get that money." Prosecutors wound down their case earlier Wednesday, introducing the comedian's explosive testimony about giving quaaludes to women before sex—an old admission that's taken on new significance after a half-dozen women testified that he drugged and violated them.
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