By Jeremy Roebuck and Laura McCrystal
The Philadelphia Inquirer
NORRISTOWN, Pa. — Bill Cosby paid Andrea Constand nearly $3.4 million to settle her 2005 lawsuit — a payment, a prosecutor said Monday, that was meant to buy her silence after the entertainer sexually assaulted her at his Cheltenham home.
That sum, hidden for more than a decade behind a confidentiality agreement both parties signed, was revealed for the first time Monday by Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin R. Steele in his opening statement to jurors at Cosby’s retrial in Norristown.
The dramatic disclosure came near the end of a day in court that had been marked by unexpected disruptions — first by a topless demonstrator who charged at the 80-year-old defendant as he arrived at the courthouse, then by a judge’s inquiry to determine if a juror should be removed from the panel.
Nicolle Rochelle, the woman arrested for charging at Cosby outside the Montgomery County Courthouse, was charged with disorderly conduct.
Rochelle, a 38-year-old New Jersey resident, had appeared on four episodes of Cosby’s eponymous sitcom between 1990 and 1992 — though it wasn’t clear how well she knew the star. She has also acted under the name Nicole Leach.
On Sunday afternoon, Rochelle had posted to her Facebook page a photo of herself on the steps of a New York City home used as the exterior of the Cosby family house on the program.
In the photo she is wearing a version of Cosby’s iconic “Hello Friend” sweatshirt, with the word “Rapist” scrawled over it in marker. “In honor of the first day of the Bill Cosby retrial, I went by the address where they filmed The Cosby Show exterior in New York City,” she wrote in the caption. “Let’s hope justice will finally be served!”
Deputies arrested Rochelle outside the Norristown courthouse after she broke through security barricades just after 8:30 a.m. and ran toward Cosby, shouting “Women’s lives matter!” She had painted various slogans and names of Cosby accusers across her torso and chest.
“I was hoping the victims would feel some sort of a connection with me,” she later told reporters in a FaceTime interview from her Norristown hotel room. “I can express anger that they can’t express.”
Rochelle explained from a cellphone held by another Cosby accuser — Lili Bernard — that she had planned her protest as a one-time event. Rochelle said that she, personally, had not had a bad experience with Cosby on the TV show set.
Still, her arrest kicked off what was to be a morning filled with opening arguments from lawyers in Cosby’s second trial for his alleged 2004 assault on Constand.
Cosby showed no visible reaction as his publicist, Andrew Wyatt, kept him back as Rochelle was placed in handcuffs.
But soon after he arrived in the courtroom, Judge Steven T. O’Neill announced he was delaying the proceedings while he dealt with a disruption of another sort — a defense motion late Friday seeking to remove one of the 12 jurors selected to hear the retrial.
Cosby’s lawyers allege that the man was overheard by another potential juror last week telling others: “I just think he’s guilty.”
They learned of the alleged remarks after another prospective member of the panel contacted Cosby’s lawyers to report she had overheard the juror’s statements while waiting last week to be interviewed by Montgomery County Judge Steven T. O’Neill during jury selection, the defense filing said.
Cosby’s lawyers had said that they feared they would be unable to find a jury that had not heard about the allegations against their client. And it soon became clear, as more than half of the 360 prospective jurors polled said they had already formed a fixed opinion about Cosby’s guilt or innocence.
But Juror No. 11 — the man the defense sought to remove Monday — had told O’Neill during a one-on-one interview that he could set aside what he had heard about the case.
In their motion Friday, Cosby’s lawyer quoted an affidavit from the other prospective juror who alleged she had overheard the man say something far different before his interview. “I just think he’s guilty, so we can all go home,” he told others, according to the woman, whose name was not revealed in the filing.
O’Neill appeared briefly in the Norristown courtroom Monday morning to explain that he intended to privately interview both the prospective juror who contacted the defense and the juror that made the purported statement before deciding if it warranted removing or replacing the juror.
“I am protecting the essence of the process, which is the jurors itself,” O’Neill said. “And to be sure that we can continue a fair and impartial trial, making sure that we have jurors that are properly seated.”
Cosby is accused of drugging and sexually assaulting Constand, a former Temple University employee, in 2004. He has pleaded not guilty. Last year, a jury hearing the case was unable to reach a unanimous verdict prompting the retrial.
