The first, Heidi Thomas, testified Tuesday that Mr. Cosby drugged and assaulted her in Reno, Nev., in 1984 after inviting her to the city, where he often performed, to help her with her acting career. A third woman, Janice Baker-Kinney, testified Wednesday that Mr. Cosby assaulted her in 1982 after giving her two pills that knocked her out.
Defense lawyers tried to undermine the credibility of each of the witnesses, suggesting during cross-examination that they had actually come forward out of a desire for attention and possibly money. But Ms. Thomas responded with a blunter rationale. “I want to see a serial rapist convicted,” she said.
Those kinds of fiery statements made for some awkward #Me Too moments in the courtroom as the women — just three of the dozens who have come forward in recent years with accounts of having been sexually abused at his hands — confronted Mr. Cosby. For the most part, he stared down, impassively, while they spoke.
Most defendants never face testimony from multiple people accusing them of prior crimes. Such evidence is typically viewed as too unrelated to the actual charges being considered, too prejudicial for a jury to hear. But Judge O’Neill ruled that multiple women could testify, based on the prosecution’s argument that the similarity of their accounts depicts a signature pattern of predatory behavior by Mr. Cosby that also ensnared Ms. Constand.
The judge acknowledged, though, that such a drumbeat of accusations can be powerful, so powerful he has said he might limit the number of accusers to less than five if he felt the impact was preventing Mr. Cosby from receiving a fair trial, an argument his lawyers had put forth.
Certainly Ms. Lasha’s testimony was compelling as she described leaving the hotel and retreating to her car in the parking lot where she prayed. She later told her guidance counselor and her sister what had happened, she said.
But defense counsel asked why she had returned two days later, with her grandmother, to see Mr. Cosby in a show. She said she did it to accommodate her grandmother. “I didn’t want to be there,” she said.
Under cross-examination, Kathleen Bliss, one of Mr. Cosby’s lawyers pushed her to answer why she had not told police investigating her Cosby account about her 2007 conviction for making a false statement to the police in an unrelated case.
“You knew you had a conviction for filing a false police report in 2007, but you didn’t tell them, did you?,” Ms. Bliss asked. Ms. Lasha responded, “I said I had a criminal history,” but conceded that the police report did not make mention of that.