A woman known to the public as “Kacey” testified on Monday that Bill Cosby had sexually assaulted her after encouraging her to take a drug that incapacitated her at a Bel Air hotel in 1996.

She recalled Cosby giving her a “big white pill” and saying: “Would I ever do anything to hurt you? Trust me, it will just help you relax.”

She took the pill, she testified, which made her feel like she was “underwater” and caused her to lie down on a couch.

Stifling tears, she testified that she came to on a bed next to Cosby. The skirt of her dress had been pulled up and the top pulled down, she claimed, exposing her breasts. She could see a bottle of lotion on a nightstand by the bed, she said, and Cosby took her lotioned hand and placed it on his penis.

Cosby has not been charged with any crimes stemming from her accusations. He is on trial here in the Montgomery County court of common pleas on charges that he sexually assaulted Andrea Constand, a former Temple University employee, in 2004.



The woman is Kelly Johnson, a former employer of the Los Angeles talent management company the William Morris Agency. Previously, the court identified her only as “Kacey”, but she testified openly on Monday. In 2015, she told her story in a press conference held by the women’s rights lawyer Gloria Allred.

Johnson is testifying for the prosecution under a Pennsylvania law that permits someone with a claim of sexual assault that was never prosecuted to testify against their alleged assailant in other cases.



Before the trial, prosecutors sought permission to call 13 accusers whose testimony, taken together, might show that Cosby had a pattern of using drugs to commit sexual assault. Judge Steven T O’Neill permitted just one of those women, Kacey, to testify.



Kacey met Cosby in 1990, she said, when she worked as an assistant at a top Los Angeles talent agency. Her boss represented Cosby.



About once a week, Kacey recalled, Cosby would place brief phone calls to the apartment she shared with a sister to “check” on them and their safety. Over the years, Cosby became friendly, asking after members of her family and sending her a birthday gift.



Kacey testified that Cosby often entreated her to call him from work but not tell her boss.

Kacey testified about two occasions she met Cosby outside of the office.

In one encounter, she testified, she went to his Los Angeles bungalow for acting lessons, and he greeted her in a bathrobe. Cosby had her act out a scene in which a “tipsy” woman and a man embrace and kiss, Kacey said. She recalled Cosby running the scene six times, and each time she attempted to avoid the embrace at the end of the scene.

Kacey also testified that one day in 1996, Cosby asked her come to the Bel Air hotel, where the two could talk about a potential career for her as an actress. Kacey testified that she had never taken an interest in an onscreen career.



It was then he gave her the white pill, the court heard.

Kacey took the pill and excused herself to the bathroom, where she searched among prescription bottles to try to identify the pill. She lost sense of time, she testified, and returned to the couch, where she felt as though she was “underwater”.

Her next memory was the assault in the bedroom, she said. She did not recall going home.

“I was very afraid because I had a secret about the biggest celebrity in the world at that time,” Kacey said between tears and gasps for air. “And it was just me and my word against his. I was afraid.”



After the incident, Kacey said, she listened to a phone conversation between her boss and Cosby in which Cosby complained about her work and encouraged her boss to fire her.



On cross-examination, Brian McMonagle, an attorney for Cosby, tore into Kacey over several inconsistencies in her recounting of events over the years, and her inability to recall many details.

“Did somebody ask you to get selective amnesia for parts of this case?” he asked.

At different times, McMonagle said, Kacey recalled the assaults occurring in different years.

He asked whether Kacey was in violation of a company policy against having relationships with clients.

“Isn’t that exactly what [your boss] accused you of?” he asked.



“No, no, no, no, no,” she replied. “Not a relationship … I was in a no-win situation.”



McMonagle referred to documents suggesting that Kacey immediately complained that her boss (but not Cosby) was sexually harassing her, and that she filed a worker’s compensation claim against her employer.



He also read from a letter that contradicted her claim that she never wanted to return to work again.



“I remain medically unable to return to work … I would like to return to work as soon as I am allowed,” the letter read.



Kacey testified she could not clearly remember the sequence of events at her workplace after the alleged assault.



McMonagle also challenged Kacey over inconsistencies in how she recounted her meetings with Cosby.



In a press conference she gave in 2015, she recounted that Cosby invited her to his hotel room to discuss a role on a television show and a contract he had drawn up. On Monday, Kacey recalled that he wanted to discuss “camera angles and set blocking”.



He also highlighted the fact that she did not report her story to police until 2016, one year after telling her story in a press conference.



“You spent that year not talking to anyone in law enforcement, correct?” McMonagle asked, counting out the months between her press conference and her report.

