Bill Cosby’s lawyers fought back Tuesday, asserting in a legal filing that he has been damaged by news media accounts that they said inaccurately portrayed him as having testified that he used powerful sedatives to drug women so he could molest them.

In Mr. Cosby’s first public defense since parts of his deposition in a 2005 lawsuit became public this month, his lawyers said he had actually “admitted to nothing more than being one of the many people who introduced Quaaludes into their consensual sex life in the 1970s.”

“Quaaludes were a highly popular recreational drug in the 1970s, labeled in slang as ‘disco biscuits,’ and known for their capacity to increase sexual arousal,” the court filing said.

The lawyers cited several news articles that they contended had misconstrued Mr. Cosby’s testimony, and they blamed the woman who had accused him of drugging and molesting her in 2005, Andrea Constand, a Temple University basketball manager. The case was settled in 2006, and the parties agreed to keep documents from the case confidential as part of the settlement.