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Bill Cosby admitted under oath that he repeatedly obtained quaaludes with the intention of giving them to women in hopes of having sex with them, according to newly surfaced court records tied to a civil lawsuit.
The admission comes from a sealed deposition Cosby gave in a lawsuit filed by Donna Motsinger, one of several women who have accused the comedian of drugging and sexually assaulting them. Portions of the deposition were first reported by TMZ and align with details Cosby has acknowledged in prior sworn testimony.
In the deposition, Cosby said he refilled a recreational prescription for quaaludes seven times and testified that he never took the pills himself. Instead, he said the drugs were intended to be given to women.
Cosby testified that the prescription came from Dr. Leroy Amar, a gynecologist and personal friend, during a poker game hosted at Cosby’s Los Angeles home before 1972. According to medical board records, Amar later had his medical license revoked in California in 1979.
The testimony closely mirrors Cosby’s widely reported 2005 deposition — made public years later — in which he acknowledged obtaining quaaludes to give to women before sexual encounters. That deposition became a key piece of evidence in the wave of civil lawsuits and criminal proceedings that followed.
Following the renewed reporting, Cosby’s representative pushed back on the characterization of his sworn testimony. In a statement shared with Loren Lorosa, Cosby’s rep said the coverage was “a distortion based on cherry-picked excerpts of a deposition,” and claimed Cosby has never admitted to involuntarily incapacitating anyone.
“Quaaludes were the party drug of the ’70s,” the representative said, adding that the drug was widely advertised and “consumed like candy.” The statement also argued that it will ultimately be up to a jury to determine whether the plaintiff’s account — that she believed she was given aspirin rather than a quaalude — is credible. The representative additionally referenced an advertisement they say was publicly displayed during that era.
Motsinger alleges Cosby assaulted her in 1972, when she was working as a server at the Trident restaurant in Sausalito, California. In her lawsuit, she says Cosby gave her a pill she believed was aspirin. After taking it, she says she began drifting in and out of consciousness and later woke up in her home wearing only her underwear, with no memory of how she got there.
According to the newly revealed deposition excerpts, Cosby described the quaaludes as round, white pills, a detail consistent with how the drug was commonly manufactured at the time.
Cosby has denied assaulting Motsinger and is seeking to have her lawsuit dismissed. Her legal team is pushing back, arguing that Cosby’s sworn admissions about acquiring and using quaaludes are directly relevant to her claims.
The developments arrive as Cosby, now in his 80s, continues to face civil litigation stemming from decades-old allegations. While his 2018 criminal conviction in Pennsylvania was overturned in 2021 on procedural grounds, more than 60 women have publicly accused him of sexual misconduct — many describing similar patterns involving drugs and incapacitation.
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