AP: Cosby said he obtained sedatives to give women

Cosby settled that lawsuit under confidential terms in 2006. His lawyers in the Philadelphia case did not immediately return phone calls Monday. Constand consented to be identified but did not want to comment, her lawyer said.

Lawyer Gloria Allred says she hopes to use Cosby's newly unsealed testimony from 2005 in other court cases against the comedian.

She said in an interview with The Associated Press on Monday evening that "this confirms the allegations of numerous victims who have alleged that he had used drugs to sexually assault them."

She says "this admission is one that Mr. Cosby has attempted to hide from the public for many years and we are very gratified that it is now being made public."

The lawyer for model Janice Dickinson says "now we know why" Bill Cosby has failed to appear for a deposition in her defamation lawsuit against him.

Dickinson sued him in May, saying denials made by the comedian's representatives after she accused him last year of raping her in 1982 were defamatory.

Given his testimony in 2005, lawyer Lisa Bloom said in a statement Monday evening, "how dare he publicly vilify Ms. Dickinson and accuse her of lying when she tells a very similar story?"

Cosby, giving testimony in the lawsuit, which accused him of sexual assaulting Constand at his home in Pennsylvania in 2005, said he got seven Quaalude prescriptions in the 1970s. Constand's lawyer Dolores M. Troiani asked if he had kept the sedatives through the 1990s — after they were banned — but was frustrated by objections from Cosby's lawyer.

"When you got the quaaludes, was it in your mind that you were going to use these quaaludes for young women that you wanted to have sex with?" Troiani asked on Sept. 29, 2005.

"Yes," Cosby answered.

"Did you ever give any of these young women the quaaludes without their knowledge?" Troiani asked.

Cosby's lawyer again objected, leading Troiani to petition the federal judge to force Cosby to cooperate.

Cosby later said he gave Constand three half-pills of Benadryl, although Troiani in the documents voices doubt that was the drug involved. The two women who testified on Constand's behalf said they knowingly took quaaludes.

Three of the women accusing Cosby of sexually assaulting them have a defamation lawsuit pending against him in Massachusetts. They allege that he defamed them when his agents said their accusations were untrue. He is trying to have their case thrown out before discovery.

Lawyer Joe Cammarata represents one of the Massachusetts accusers. He says the use of drugs during sex has been a "recurring theme of the women's allegations." He says the documents unsealed appear to support their claims.

Cosby fought the AP's efforts to unseal the testimony, with his lawyer George M. Gowen III arguing the deposition could reveal details of Cosby's marriage, sex life and prescription drug use.

"It would be terribly embarrassing for this material to come out," Gowen argued in June. He said the public should not have access to what Cosby was forced to say as he answered questions under oath from the accuser's lawyer nearly a decade ago.

"Frankly … it would embarrass him. It would also prejudice him in eyes of the jury pool in Massachusetts," Gowen said.

U.S. District Judge Eduardo Robreno asked last month why Cosby was fighting the release of his testimony, given that the accusations in Constand's lawsuit were already in the public eye.

"Why would he be embarrassed by his own version of the facts?" Robreno said.

Cosby's lawyers have not returned messages seeking comment.

Cosby resigned in December from the board of trustees at Temple, where he was the popular face of the Philadelphia school in advertisements, fundraising campaigns and commencement speeches.

The Associated Press