Judges rule comedian’s appeal is moot because contents of 2005 deposition, which include admissions of affairs and drugs, are a matter of ‘public knowledge’

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

A federal appeals court on Monday rejected an effort by the comedian Bill Cosby to reseal court documents that helped support a ream of recent sexual assault cases against him.



The third US circuit court of appeals in Philadelphia ruled that Cosby’s appeal was moot after the contents, including “damaging” admissions he had made in a 2005 deposition regarding his sexual behavior, received wide publicity.

“Resealing the documents would not provide Cosby with any meaningful relief, and thus this appeal is moot,” the court said. “The contents of the documents are a matter of public knowledge, and we cannot pretend that we could change that fact by ordering them resealed.”

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Cosby, 78, faces accusations of sexual assault by more than 50 women. He has denied having non-consensual sex with any of them.

The documents referred to include comments Cosby made in the deposition about his sexual behavior. That deposition resulted from a complaint filed in US district court by Andrea Constand, a former Temple University basketball coach who accused the comedian of drugging and assaulting her at his Pennsylvania home in 2004.

The documents included admissions by the entertainer that he had extramarital affairs, and that he had acquired the sedative known as Quaaludes and engaged in sexual relations with a woman after she took the drug, according to the appeals court’s ruling.

They were unsealed by the US district court for the eastern district of Pennsylvania in July 2015, and Cosby’s lawyers later sought to have them resealed.

But the appeals court said the issue was moot because news organizations had published articles about the documents within hours of them being released, “and the news media have repeated his damaging admissions countless times since then”.