Andrea Constand was assaulted by Cosby on January 6, 2004 and spent the next 15 years of her life pursuing justice.
The young former basketball player in the prime of her life is invited to visit the home of her mentor. A man forty years her senior whom she has known for two years, who has guided her and offered to help her with her career. A man she has come to consider a friend; known to millions as “America’s Dad:” respected, loved, and trusted.
Andrea reported the assault to police, but the DA at the time refused to take the case to court, certain the evidence would not lead to a conviction. She says, “I wanted Bill Cosby in jail for what he did to me, but I couldn’t get that, so my lawyers launched a civil suit in 2005.” During a deposition in that civil suit, Cosby admitted to using drugs in the pursuit of sex with young women. That admission was followed quickly by an offer to settle and an iron-clad NDA. The truth of that admission, that Andrea was one of many women drugged and sexually assaulted by Cosby, was locked away for a decade until a young black comedian called Cosby a rapist on stage. A journalist sitting in the audience pulled out his phone, and the video went viral overnight.
The viral video would cause more women to come forward, revealing five decades of predation. A new DA is elected in Philadelphia who approaches Andrea offering finally to take Cosby to court on criminal charges. The announcement is made just a week before the statute of limitations is due to run out on her case. After spending close to a decade repairing her life bound by a non-disclosure agreement, Andrea at last can step forward to defend her truth in court, in front of the world. That trial ends in a hung jury, but then, amidst the world-changing events of the #MeToo movement, a new trial finally leads to the guilty verdict and conviction and incarceration of Bill Cosby.
With intimate access to Andrea and her family, Cosby’s prosecutors, journalists in the courtroom, and experts on predation, paedophilia, and trauma, we are taken on a journey that will leave us shocked, informed, and deeply changed. Woven throughout the riveting legal story are the first-person accounts of five Cosby survivors as they confront the impact of sexual trauma with world-renowned physician and best-selling author Gabor Maté. Across the two hours the documentary bear witness to the power of healing as these women find strength in one other.
A heroine’s journey, The Case Against Cosby is a two part documentary, an hour-long episode each, that reveals how one woman’s unstoppable courage and search for justice helped raise the voice of an entire generation of women seeking lasting change.
The Case Against Cosby is available to stream exclusively on ITVX from Thursday 10th August
