Bill Cosby Paid Accuser Nearly $3.4M, Prosecutor Claims

Bill Cosby’s retrial began on Monday, with the revelation that he paid his alleged victim $3.4 million in 2006.

Cosby is being retried for the alleged 2004 sexual assault of Andrea Constand in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. According to The Hollywood Reporter, both the defense and the prosecution were forced to keep his multi-million dollar payment confidential during the last trial. However, a judge ruled that the number was fair game as they try the case yet again.

District Attorney Kevin Steele reportedly focused on the payment during his opening statement, apparently trying to suggest that Cosby wouldn’t have paid so much money unless the accusations had some truth to them. Meanwhile, Cosby’s lawyers seemed to signal their intentions of using the payment to argue that Constand had made false accusations to receive a big payment, which, they believe, she did.

“This case is about trust,” Steele told the jury. “This case is about betrayal and that betrayal leading to the sexual assault of a woman named Andrea Constand.”

Cosby, now 80 years old, is charged with drugging Constand and molesting her in his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004. At time, Constand was an employee of Temple University’s basketball program. She claims that Cosby gave her pills that incapacitated her, and then touched her without her consent. She claims that the drugs made her incapable of telling him to stop.

“She’s unconscious. She’s out of it,” Steele said. “She will describe how her body felt during this circumstance. She’s jolted during this. She feels herself being violated… And she’ll tell you she remembers waking up on this sofa with her clothes disheveled at 4 o’clock in the morning. This is hours after this starts.”

Dennis McAndrews, a lawyer not associated with the trial, told THR that the settlement amount will likely be a big part of the prosecution’s case.

“The question that I’m sure we’re going to hear a lot about is, why would an innocent man pay $3.38 million for something he didn’t do?”

Cosby’s lawyers will make their opening statement on Tuesday. The trial is expected to last about a month in total. He faces three counts of aggravated indecent assault, each punishable by as many as 10 years in prison.

The trial began in a dramatic fashion when a topless protester jumped over the barrier and charged at Cosby on his way into the courthouse. The woman, identified as 39-year-old Nicolle Rochelle, had the names of more than 50 Cosby accusers painted on her body, along with the words “Women’s Lives Matter.”

Rochelle turned out to be a former child actress, who appeared on several episodes of the The Cosby Show.