As Bill Cosby gears up to head to court once again next week, a Pennsylvania judge ruled that a former Temple University employee, who claimed the comedian’s accuser told her she would fabricate sexual assault claims, will be able to testify.
A judge ruled on Tuesday that an ex-Temple University employee, Marguerite Jackson, who claims fellow former Temple employee Andrea Constand, 44, told her she intended to fabricate sex assault claims as a way to make money, will be able testify at trial.
Jackson was initially not permitted to testify during the first trial after Constand claimed to not know her. She later amended her statement to admit she “recalls a Margo.”
The so-called friend also stated that Constand told her she would fabricate the claims to “get money to go to school and open a business,” The Mercury News reported.
Constand’s attorney stated that Jackson is “not telling the truth” about his client allegedly revealing she wanted to make up the claims and was out for money.
The judge also made a ruling that settlement negotiations between Constand and Cosby, 80, cannot be used as evidence in the case — in which she accuses the comedian of drugging and molesting her more than a decade ago. However, Philly.com reported that the amount Cosby paid Cosntand during a 2006 civil suit will be made public during the upcoming trial.
Cosby had pleaded not guilty to charges he drugged and sexually molested Constand, who was working as Temple’s women’s basketball administrator in 2004, at his suburban Philadelphia mansion.
A former colleague of Andrea Constand (pictured) claims she planned to fabricate a sex assault story.
(POOL/REUTERS)
“The Cosby Show” star maintained that the encounter was consensual.
This is Cosby’s second criminal sexual assault trial. His last trial in June 2017 ended in a mistrial after the jury could not reach a unanimous decision after 52 hours of deliberation.
