Kelly Johnson, the first witness for the prosecution in the criminal trial against Bill Cosby for sexual assault against Andrea Constand, broke down and wept as she recalled an alleged assault by Cosby at the Bel Air hotel in 1996.

The sobbing witness, a former William Morris assistant, recalled how Cosby had invited her for lunch but how it quickly transpired that the lunch which she had assumed would be at the hotel was in a bungalow he had reserved.

She recalled that he answered the door dressed in a bathrobe and slippers.

He tried to get her to drink wine but she described herself as ‘not much of a drinker.’

As she described her increasing discomfort her voice trembled and she clutched a tissue as she related how he told her ‘You look like you need to relax.’

Mining her memory she said ‘He held his hand like this, ‘she clenched her first before her. ‘He opened his hand and there was a big white pill in his palm.’

Under extreme duress Johnson said she decided to feign taking it, intending to hide it under her tongue and spit it out in the bathroom.

But when she pretended to swallow it with water he offered her wine and said: ‘Open your mouth. Lift up your tongue. And I did and there it was.’

She then swallowed.

Soon, she said she felt ‘underwater.’

Alleged victim of sexual abuse by comedian Bill Cosby using the assumed name Kacey. Her name is Kelly Johnson and she was the first to testify on Monday

Actress Keshia Knight Pulliam walks out of the courtroom with Bill Cosby after ther first day of his trial on sexual assault charges

Desite the emotional testimony of Kelly Johnson, Cosby left the courtroom with a smile on his face

After swallowing the pill Johnson went to the bathroom to try to compose herself. She said that the sink area was ‘just covered with prescription bottles.’

She thought if she could read them she might work out what she had ingested.

‘I was feeling frustrated with myself because for some reason I couldn’t read the bottles - I didn’t need glasses at the time.’

Panicking and uncertain of how long she had been in the bathroom Johnson emerged and rejoined Cosby in the lounge.

She lost consciousness she said and when she came to she was in the bedroom, on the bed, her dress pulled up from the bottom and her breasts exposed. Cosby was lying behind her and she could hear ‘grunting sounds’

Weeping Johnson also remembered a bottle of lotion on the bed stand. She said: ‘He put lotion in my hand. He made me touch his penis.’

Bill Cosby gestures as he walks from the Montgomery County Courthouse on Monday

Bill Cosby is pictured after the first day of his trial at the Montgomery County Courthouse

She said: ‘I remember him standing by the side of the bed. I remember seeing his slippers on the floor and wondering why I was looking at slippers on the floor.

‘I remember wanting to pull up my dress.’

Johnson said she felt ‘intimidated’ by Cosby and afraid. She felt in some way complicit, as Cosby had asked her not to tell her boss that she was meeting him outside the office and yet she had done so.

The next time she was in the office she said that, as an assistant who was tasked with listening to her boss’s telephone calls and making notes, she was on the line when Cosby called Tom Illius on his private line.

She stated that she heard him describe her as ‘a problem’ that had to be ‘dealt with.’

According to Johnson she called her mother who told her to go to HR and lodge a complaint. When she did so she was, she said ‘a mess.’ And was told to go home for the rest of the day. She stated that she never returned to William Morris though she did end up embroiled in a workers compensation case prior to being terminated from the company.

Bill Cosby arrived at Montgomery County Court in Norristown, Pennsylvania for Day One of the Andrea Constand trial alongside his spokesman and his former TV daughter Keshia Knight Pulliam

Holding a wooden cane, Cosby got to the courthouse around 8.40 am Monday, amid a heavy media presence

She said that the deposition she made for that case was ‘the most humiliating, embarrassing’ moment of her life.

Earlier in her testimony Johnson had described how her relationship with Cosby began when she was assistant to his agent. He was always ‘cordial, polite and professional’ she recalled, though their telephone conversations became more familiar with time.

She began working for William Morris in April 1990 and was assistant to Cosby’s late agent, Tom Illius. According to Johnson, Illius has a reputation for being ‘difficult’ to work with but she had found a way to do so.

She worked for him between 1990 and 1993 when she returned from maternity leave after giving birth to her son. Then, after a period of time moving between desks she returned to work for him around 1996.

Over that time she claimed she established a friendly relationship with Cosby. The star took to calling her at home, asking after her family, invited her parents and siblings to a show of his in Las Vegas. They were not intimate she claimed.

Johnson also recalled a bizarre earlier encounter with Cosby - one that she claimed took place some six years before the bungalow ‘assault,’ when, in 1990 Cosby invited her to his home in Los Angeles.

She recalled that Cosby invited her to his own, asking her to pick up dinner from a restaurant en route.

He had told her he wanted to discuss ‘lighting, set blocking and camera angles,’ - none of them things in which she claimed to have expressed any interest.

She drove to his home in her Volkswagen bug and, when she got there, she said, he suggested they read a scene from a script together.

She said: ‘He directed me to a kitchen and he put the dinner down and then we went back into a den area where he did have a television set up and videotape to show me some television show he was going to use to explain to me the idea of set blocking and all that.

‘He had me read a scene from a script. The scene was between a man and a woman and the woman had to be a little tipsy. He was standing by the desk and I was to approach and the scene was to end with an embrace between the man and the woman and a kiss.’

According to Johnson she was no actress and deeply uncomfortable with the scene which Cosby insisted on repeating ‘again and again and again and again.’ But each time she turned her face from him rather than accept his kiss.

Johnson described Cosby as somebody for whom she had the ‘utmost respect.’ She ‘revered’ him she said and, given that he was among the most successful celebrities on the William Morris Agency’s book at the time, she feared displeasing him.

She had thought the invitation to Bel Air Hotel proof that there were no hard feelings.

Victims of alleged sexual abuse by Cosby, from left) Lynn Neal, Linda Kirkpatrick and Kacey - Kelly Johnson - spoke out during a news conference with attorney Gloria Allred in 2015

His accuser, Andrea Constand, 44, alleges that he drugged her and raped her during an encounter at Cosby's home near Philadelphia in 2004. Prosecutors are planning to call on a second accuser, who has not yet been named

After a short break defense lawyer Brian McMonagle set about dismantling Johnson’s credibility, character and chronology.

Working from legal notes taking at the time of Johnson’s 1996 deposition he asserted that she had changed her story significantly in the intervening years - and, he implied, with the intervening influence of Gloria Allred, the lawyer to whom Johnson turned in 2015 when she made her claims public.

According to McMonagle back in 1996 Johnson said that the bungalow incident was in 1990 and the bizarre, and more anodyne, script reading encounter took place in 1996.

In a statement given more than two decades ago he alleged that Johnson explained her decision to go back to Cosby’s home despite the earlier ‘assault’ by saying that she returned because she ‘expected things to be different.’

Under rapid and intense questioning during which McMonagle hurled details and discrepancies from her own previous testimony at Johnson she struggled to find a voice - or her power of recall.

When confronted with her own statement made at the time concerning the Bel Air bungalow, that Cosby had pushed her head down, she had not liked it and he had said ‘okay’ got up and she drove home, she said she did not remember saying that.

She stated that she did not recall what she said in her deposition - the one that she had earlier described as so humiliating and embarrassing.

She admitted that her recall of events might have been better when she made that statement back in 1996.

Asked if she remembered Cosby giving her $400 she said she did not. Asked if she remembered him paying $100 for her hair she said she did not. Asked if she remembered him ‘laying out the money and her taking it’ the prosecution stepped into object.

Frustrated McMonagle asked: ‘Ms Johnson has it been suggest to you you should acquire selective amnesia for this case?’

She replied ‘No.'

McMonagle pressed Johnson’s claims that she had not and did not do drugs at the time of the Bel Air Hotel assault.

‘Who is Maxi Priest?’ he asked.

‘The father of my child,’ she replied.

McMonagle ploughed on, ‘You did drugs with Maxi Priest.’

Struggling to remain composed, she said: ‘I did not do drugs with Maxi Priest.’ She went onto deny McMonagle’s persistent suggestions that she did drugs during the 1990s to the point where the prosecution once again objected.

Therese Serignese arrives at the sexual assault trial of Cosby. She says she was 19 when Cosby drugged and raped her in Las Vegas after one of his shows

Across the course of his aggressive questioning McMonagle tried to paint Johnson as a woman who had acted out of ulterior motives - a woman scorned. He said that she had in fact made an allegation of sexual harassment against her boss, Mr Ilius, not Cosby and that when she learned he had already complained about her and planned to terminate her employment she took an extended medical leave, claiming that she had been injured at work.

‘I was in effect injured at work,’ she responded softly.

Taking gulps of air she said: ‘I was embarrassed. I was afraid. I had a secret about the biggest celebrity in the world. It was just me. My word against his. I was afraid.’

Cosby has stated that he will not testify in court but Bill Cosby is a man who will be convicted by his own voice, his own words and his own admissions according to prosecutor, Kristen Feden in her opening statement in Montgomery County Court this morning.

Addressing the jury Feden sought to paint the case as simple. She said it was about: ‘Trust, betrayal and the inability to consent.’

‘This is about a man who used his power and his fame and his previously practiced method of placing a young trusting woman in an incapacitated state so that he could sexually pleasure himself, so she couldn’t say no.’

According to defense attorney Brian McMonagle it is about nothing of the sort. It is about a woman who had an ongoing consensual relationship with Cosby then cried rape when it crumbled, a woman who has flip flopped, drastically changing her accounts over the course of the original prosecution and who, he will show in the final analysis, is an incredible witness leveling false allegations.

Prosecutor Feden was first to address the court on Monday morning. She said that in addition to evidence from Andrea Constand herself, the court will hear testimony from a forensic toxicologist, the alleged victim’s mother, Gianna and another woman who has leveled similar allegations against Cosby, Kelly Johnson, who called herself Kacey when she appeared in a press conference with Gloria Allred in 2015.

But, she argued, most damning of all would be the excerpts the jury will hear from Cosby’s deposition, given back in 2005, when Constand’s allegations were first investigated - a criminal investigation that foundered.

Feden recounted what she identified as the key elements of Constand’s account. She told how she had considered Cosby, then a trustee of Temple University where she worked as Director of Basketball, a mentor and friend. ‘He was a legend,’ Feden stated.

Montgomery County assistant district attorney Kristen Feden, here with DA Kevin Steele, lashed out at Cosby during her scathing opening statement Monday

She described the night in question when Constand claims to have gone over to Cosby’s house with the intention of discussing her career.

‘They were sitting there at the kitchen table and she was telling him how torn she was.

‘At that moment he excuses himself to the upstairs bathroom and comes down with three blue pills.’

Constand said that she asked if they were herbal and when he told her yes, that they would help her relax, she took them.

What followed, according to Feden, ‘Stripped Ms Constand of her autonomy over her own body, stripped her of her privacy.’

‘Total control of her body,’ was she stated, ‘Stolen.’

As Feden described how Cosby allegedly took Constand’s limp hand placed it on his penis and masturbated himself Cosby sat across the room barely reacting.

Earlier Feden had pointed to him, walked across the room, gesturing towards him a whisper away from where he sat and even then he had not flinched.

He occasionally looked down. He sometimes looked up. At times he placed his hand, balled in a fist, over his mouth.

Feden reminded the jury that the man who sat there, who appeared so familiar to them, was in fact a stranger. She spoke of the ‘illusion’ of Dr Huxtable - a role that had captured the nation, transcending gender and race boundaries - and she spoke of the ‘shadow’ of his true nature.

She quoted the comedian’s own words against him as, in his deposition, he had admitted to being romantically attracted to Andrea Constand from the first time he saw her.

When asked what he meant by ‘romantically’ he said: ‘Romance in terms of steps that will lead to some kind of permission or no permission or how you go about getting to wherever you’re going to wind up.’

‘His words,’ Ms Feden reminded the jury.

She pointed out that the defendant had called Constand’s mother when, many months after the alleged assault and having moved back to Canada, Constand told her mother what had allegedly happened that night.

Gianna Costand will she said, ‘Take the stand and tell you that she demanded to know what he gave to her daughter. She demanded to know what he did to her.’

Cosby's defense team, Brian McMonagle (left) and Angela Agrusa (right) plan to argue that the sexual contact between the actor and Constand was consensual

During a call that lasted more than two hours, Feden asserted that Cosby apologized, offered to pay for Constand’s ongoing education and admitted to giving her daughter pills. He said he would have to find the prescription to know exactly what those pills were.

‘There are not a lot of facts here that are in dispute because that for the most part is corroborated by the defendant.’

After that conversation Constand's mother got a recording device and, when Cosby called back, she recorded the conversation. ‘You will hear portions of that call,’ the prosecutor informed the court.

Next McMonagle stood to address the court, placing a reassuring hand on his client’s shoulder as he did so.

He spoke softly, almost inaudibly at times, at others rising in a crescendo for theatrical effect. The only thing worse than sexual assault, he stated, ‘is the false accusation of that.’

‘It can destroy a man. It can destroy his life. It can destroy his future.’

McMonagle set out to trash Constand’s credibility as a witness.

He informed them that she had changed her story three times when, back in 2005 she first told police in Canada - where she is from and to where she returned two months after the alleged assault.

She at first told both Canadian and Montgomery County investigators that the assault had occurred after ‘dinner at a local restaurant with others’ when she went home with Cosby and that she had had no contact following that assault. She claimed to have never been alone with him before or since.

But as the investigation went on Constand, he said, changed her story. There had been no dinner, no restaurant, no others. And she had gone to Cosby’s home, he said more than once.

He said, ‘The first time I went over to his home, his wife wasn’t there. I brought him gifts. I brought him incense and bath-salts. We had dinner. We put on the incense. We had cognac and sipped it in front of a fire romantically.’

After that, he asserted, she had ‘followed him’ to a performance at the Foxtrot Casino in Connecticut where she had dinner with him and others then returned to his room when the rest had gone and ‘lay in his bed with him.’

He pointed out that Cosby has never denied giving Ms Constand the pills but rejects her claim that she was incapacitated when they had intimate relations on the couch. Instead he said they made out as they had done before, when she said she felt sleepy he went to bed. The next morning he made her breakfast.

Constand called Cosby after she moved to Canada - twice to get tickets for her and her mother to see him perform. On the first occasion he granted her her wish. On the second, in December 2004 he didn’t return her call. Mr McMonagle pointed out that Ms Constand made her allegations just one month later.

As McMonagle warmed to his theme Cosby showed more by way of reaction. When referring to fellow accuser Kelly Johnson, who once worked for Cosby’s agency William Morris, McMonagle claims that she too had a consensual encounter with Cosby and cried rape when she seemed set to lose her job for being in breach of company policy on such matters.

‘Kelly Johnson comes forward in 2015 at a press conference in LA with a lawyer who specializes in sexual assault. See a pattern?’ Cosby nodded his head.

Had she ever gone to the police? Cosby shook his head.

Just like the prosecution McMonagle implored the court to look past Cosby’s celebrity, but for very different reasons. He urged them to see him simply as a citizen - innocent until proven guilty.

He asked them to be the jury they would want ‘if it was your grandfather, your son, or you’ sitting there. He omitted the role of ‘husband’ perhaps aware that that might not play given the absence of his wife Camille form court and the fact that, as he laid it out in his opening statement, Cosby’s defense stands in large part on an admission of multiple, consensual, infidelities.

Cosby walked swiftly and without ceremony as he arrived at court around 8.45 this morning for his first day on trial.

The 79-year-old walked alongside his spokesperson, Andrew Wyatt on the right, and his former TV daughter Keshia Knight Pulliam, 38.

Dressed in a navy blue suit, he slipped in with less pomp and ceremony than had been reserved for seating the members of the media and public who had settled only moments earlier.

His wife Camille was not by his side.

But the actor, who was once deemed 'America's favorite TV dad' gave no impression of a man under pressure or in failing health.

His stride was strong and his spirits seemed high. Cosby was seen chatting with his legal team - smiling, laughing, gripping their arms, clapping their backs before taking his seat at the front of Montgomery County Court, Norristown.

Cosby smiled but said nothing when someone asked how he was feeling.

Actress Keshia Knight Pulliam is seen leaving the first day of Bill Cosby trial on Monday

It would be hard to imagine a more different figure from the shambling, sweatpant-clad figure who has so recently presented publicly.

The entire right hand side of Courtroom A was reserved for media – nine rows, eight journalists per row – while half of the left hand side was filled by press and the remaining straggling bench and additional seats occupied by curious members of the public.

A total of 120 media have been accredited to cover the much anticipated trial with others seated in an overflow courtroom nearby.

Montgomery County Judge Steven T. O'Neill is hoping to keep the media frenzy from influencing the case as it did at O.J. Simpson's murder trial.

The cameras that dominated Simpson's trial aren't allowed in Pennsylvania courtrooms, but scores of photographers have lined up outside the courthouse. Like the Simpson case, the jury will be sequestered.

The judge took nearly an hour to instruct the jurors with whom he had met personally earlier this morning.

Cosby appeared to be in high spirits as he walked into the court he was seen chatting with his legal team - smiling, laughing, and gripping their arms

Cosby is seen speaking to Pulliam and his spokesperson Andrew Wyatt

Montgomery County Judge Steven T. O'Neill hopes to keep the media frenzy from influencing the case as it did at O.J. Simpson's murder trial

Bill Cosby arrives the Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown - the television star will not testify during the trial

In a case where impassivity has been a major issue due to the huge publicity the case has attracted and the multiple accusers who have come forward he urged the jury to weight the facts alone - without sympathy or prejudice.

Cosby has said publicly that he does not intend to testify.

Today Judge O’Neill reminded them: 'You are not permitted to hold it against the defendant if he does not give evidence.'

'As a sequestered jury you move as one,' he told them. 'You’re it. You're the ones I’m depending on. It comes from right here,' he added, 'Right here,' jabbing his heart and his gut.

Cosby scandal timeline 2002: Basketball coach Andrea Constand meets Bill Cosby March 2004: Constand alleges Cosby gave her 'blue pills to help her relax' at his home. Cosby insists the sex was consensual January 2005: Constrand's mother calls Cosby to confront him about he alleged assault January 26, 2005: Cosby is interviewed with his lawyer about the allegations by police on Pennsylvania February 2005: DA decides against prosecuting Cosby for the assault March 2005: Constand takes a civil case against Cosby July 2006: Civil case settled July 2015: Prosecutors reopen Constand case as it was still within the statute of limitations June 2017: Cosby goes on trial accused of sexual assault Advertisement

More than a decade after he invited a college basketball manager to his home to discuss her career, today the 79-year-old comedian faces Day One of a sexual assault trial that is sure to define his legacy.

The defense plans to try and prove that the sexual activity between Cosby and his accuser Andrea Constand - who is openly gay and was in a relationship with a woman at the time of the alleged sexual assault - was consensual.

Constand alleges that he drugged her and raped her during an encounter at Cosby's home near Philadelphia in 2004.

At the time, Constand was on staff working for the women's basketball team at Cosby's alma mater, Temple University.

Constand, now 44, has never spoken publicly about the TV star under the terms of a confidential settlement they negotiated in 2006.

And her deposition from that lawsuit remains sealed. Yet friends say she is ready to face Cosby and the crush of media in the courtroom.

In her affidavit Constand told police that the actor gave her wine and pills and then sexually assaulted her while she was unconscious.

'I got scared,' Constand told police of the alleged assault. 'I had no strength in my legs. They felt rubbery and like jelly. I felt spacey. Everything was blurry or dizzy. I had no thought to call 911.'

She later told police: 'I told him, "I can't even talk, Mr. Cosby." I started to panic.'

There was no sign of Cosby's wife, Camille, on Monday morning, who was expected to attend court proceedings to show support for her husband

Constand claims she arrived at Cosby's home on the night in question and was greeted by the actor, who was wearing a sweatsuit.

The two spoke about Constand's future, and she told Cosby she was feeling 'drained' and 'emotionally occupied.'

That is when Cosby allegedly went upstairs and returned with three blue pills. telling Constand: 'These will make you feel good. The blue things will take the edge off.'

Constand claims she then asked if the pills were herbal, to which Cosby replied: 'Yes. Down them. Put 'em down. Put them in your mouth.'

According to the affidavit of probable cause, Cosby then told Constand to have some wine, and soon after she began to have trouble speaking and seeing.

Cosby then allegedly told her to lie down on the couch, and soon after, according to the affidavit of probable hearing, was 'fondling her breasts, put his hands into her pants, and penetrated her vagina with his fingers'.

He also allegedly took her hand and placed it on his erect penis.

Constand claims she woke up hours later around 4am and realized her bra was undone and above her breasts and that her sweater was bunched up.

As she made her way to the door she claims Cosby was standing there in a robe and holding a muffin, which he handed to her as she left while saying: 'Alright.'

She launched a legal suit against Cosby, a man she called her 'mentor', in March 2005.

She said she first met Cosby, a Temple alum, in November 2002 and the pair became friends and she was a frequent guest at dinner parties at his home.

The case against him emerged just days before Pennsylvania's 12-year statute of limitation deadline for pressing charges was about to run out and despite a previous DA declining to charge Cosby a decade ago.

The disgraced actor was joined by former TV daughter Keshia Knight Pulliam who played Rudy Huxtable on the Cosby Show, and were seen smiling and laughing as they walked into court

Cosby previously said under oath that he had consensual sexual contact with Constand.

The affidavit of probable cause describes both incidents, as well as the night of the alleged assault.

Constand claims that the first time Cosby made an advance at her was after the two shared a meal at his house and were sitting on his sofa having a discussion.

That is when 'without warning, Cosby reached over and touched her pants, her waist, and her inner thigh', according to the affidavit of probable cause.

She claims she then excused herself, went to the bathroom, gathered her things and left.

Attorney Gloria Allred, who represents women who have accused Cosby of sexual assault, was seen arriving at the courthouse on Monday

The next time he made an advance at her also occurred at his home in Elkins Park, and this time he 'unbuttoned her pants and began touching her,' according to the affidavit of probable cause.

Once again Constand claims she left soon after.

Then, sometime between mid-January and mid-February 2004, the alleged sexual assault occurred.

It was the release of that deposition and the admissions that Cosby made that led to Montgomery County prosecutors pressing charges.

Cosby's lawyers said in a statement shortly after the new charges were announced; 'The charge by the Montgomery County District Attorney's office came as no surprise, filed 12 years after the alleged incident and coming on the heels of a hotly contested election for this county's DA during which this case was made the focal point.

Cosby was arrested and charged with aggravated indecent assault in December 2015

'Make no mistake, we intend to mount a vigorous defense against this unjustified charge.'

Cosby has been out on $1million bail since December 30, 2015 when he was charged in Montgomery County.

In February 2016 he sued Constand claiming she violated the terms of their civil settlement by agreeing to cooperate in the criminal probe against him.

Regardless of the outcome of the trial, Cosby, who was once a revered figure in American pop culture, has been disgraced by a slew of allegations from more than 60 women who have come forward to make similar accusations.

And while Cosby doesn't plan to testify, but the rambling, remarkable testimony he gave in the accuser's lawsuit could still prove pivotal.

Cosby, a champion of family life after a 50-year marriage and five children, detailed his practice of inviting young actresses, models, flight attendants and waitresses to meetings that often featured pills and alcohol — and turned sexual. He called some of them mere 'liaisons'.

Cosby became 'America's favorite TV dad' for his portrayal as Dr Heathcliff Hutxable on the Cosby Show. Keshia Knight Pulliam, who played youngest daughter Rudy (center) spoke out about the allegations last year saying she 'loves [Cosby] dearly' and he is 'innocent until proven guilty'

But Andrea Constand, he said, was different.

Cosby had beaten back rumors about his conduct before, at least once by giving an exclusive interview to a tabloid to squelch a woman's story.

Cosby and his agents, as they had with other women, offered Constand money for school when her mother, Gianna, called to confront him in January 2006.

'She said your apology is enough,' Cosby said in the deposition.

'There's nothing you can do.'

Gianna Constand is also expected to testify, to describe changes she saw in her daughter that year and the phone call with Cosby they taped after going to police near Toronto, where they live.

The complaint was referred to Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, where the district attorney found the case too weak to prosecute.

Constand instead sued Cosby for sexual battery.

Thirteen women signed on to support her lawsuit, saying Cosby had also molested them.

But Cosby avoided a trial by negotiating a confidential settlement with Constand in 2006.

The issue died down until 2014, when comedian Hannibal Burress called Cosby out as a rapist, leading dozens of new accusers to come forward.

Months later, a federal judge granted an Associated Press motion to unseal parts of his deposition.

In one of the more explosive revelations, Cosby said he had gotten quaaludes in the 1970s to give women before sex.

The news put a halt to his planned TV comeback and led networks to stop airing Cosby reruns.