Prosecutors have dug up comments Bill Cosby made about the aphrodisiac "Spanish fly" more than 25 years ago and hope to use them against him during his sexual-assault trial.
In a court filing Thursday, the district attorney's office asked a Pennsylvania judge to allow into evidence a passage from Cosby's 1991 book "Childhood" and an interview he gave Larry King that same year — arguing they show the TV star "had knowledge of date-rape drugs" and wanted to use them.
Spanish fly is the nickname for a concoction of powdered beetle remains. It's historically been used as a sexual stimulant, not a sedative like the pills that Cosby allegedly gave the accuser in his criminal trial, Andrea Constand.
In his book, Cosby recalled that as a youth, he and his friends wanted to obtain Spanish fly, a beetle secretion said to increase sexual desire, because girls "were never in the mood for us." He claimed they tried and failed to slip it to a group of girls.
"My style perhaps could have been smoother, but this, after all, was the first aphrodisiac I ever had pushed," he wrote in the passage cited by prosecutors.
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In the TV interview, Cosby told King that "all boys from age 11 on up to death" were in search of Spanish fly. He's also joked about Spanish fly in his standup routines, though those were not included in the prosecution's motion.
The prosecutors also want the judge to let them use a passage from Cosby's 2005 deposition in a lawsuit filed by Constand in which he's asked about giving women Quaaludes for sex in the 1970s.
Cosby's representatives had no comment on the prosecutors' move to strengthen their claim that giving women intoxicants for sex was Cosby's "signature" for decades.
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Cosby is charged with drugging and molesting Constand during a visit to his Pennsylvania home in 2004 — the only criminal case stemming from dozens of accusations of sexual misconduct. He has denied wrongdoing and has sued some of his accusers for defamation.
He will be back in court Monday for a hearing on a number of outstanding issues, including a defense motion to stop the jury from hearing about his civil settlement with Constand, who sued him in 2005 and walked away with an undisclosed sum.
The defense has also asked the judge to have potential jurors fill out written questionnaires that will gauge what news coverage of the case they have seen, whether they think Cosby is guilty and whether they know anyone who was accused of or the victim of sexual assault.
