Posted June 06, 2017 10:04:22

Photo: Bill Cosby accompanied by defence lawyer Brian McMonagle. (AP: Matt Rourke)

Bill Cosby has gone on trial to face charges of drugging and sexually assaulting a woman more than a decade ago, with prosecutors introducing evidence suggesting the television star had committed the crimes against others before.

The prosecution's opening witness was not the person Cosby is charged with abusing, but another woman, who broke down in tears as she testified that the comedian violated her in the mid-1990s at a hotel bungalow in Los Angeles.

Cosby, 79, is on trial on charges he assaulted Andrea Constand, a former employee of Temple University's basketball program, at his suburban Philadelphia mansion in 2004.

With Cosby's good-guy reputation already in ruins, the man once known as America's Dad could get 10 years in prison if convicted.

In her opening statement, prosecutor Kristen Feden noted that the Cosby Show star previously admitted under oath that he gave Ms Constand pills and touched her genitals as she lay on his couch.

"She couldn't say no," Ms Feden said.

"She can't move, she can't talk. Completely paralysed. Frozen. Lifeless."

Cosby's attorney Brian McMonagle countered by attacking what he said were inconsistencies in Ms Constand's story, disputing that Ms Constand was incapacitated, and making the case that she and Cosby had a romantic relationship.

He said Ms Constand initially told police that she and Cosby did not speak after their 2004 encounter, when, in fact, phone records show the two talked 72 times, with 53 of those calls initiated by Ms Constand.

Ms Constand, 44, of the Toronto area, is expected to take the stand this week and tell her story in public for the first time.

'It was just me, my word against his'

The trial's first witness was Kelly Johnson of Atlanta, who worked for one of Cosby's agents at the William Morris Agency.

She described an encounter she said took place in 1996 at the Hotel Bel-Air when she was in her mid-30s.

Prosecutors are trying to show Cosby's treatment of Ms Constand fits a pattern of predatory behaviour.

They had wanted to call as many as 13 women who say Cosby sexually assaulted them, out of more than 60 accusers in all.

But Judge Steven O'Neill, in a victory for Cosby, said the jury could hear only from Ms Constand and Ms Johnson.

Ms Johnson testified that Cosby pressured her to take a large white pill that knocked her out, and when she woke up he put lotion on her hand and forced her to touch his genitals.

"My dress was pulled up from the bottom, and it was pulled down from the top, and my breasts were out, and I felt naked," she said, crying.

But Cosby's lawyer argued that Ms Johnson was seeking a payout from the TV star.

Mr McMonagle said Ms Johnson mixed up the years and other details of her encounters with Cosby, and he grilled her about why she never said anything when she left William Morris.

She came forward in 2015 at a media conference with celebrity lawyer Gloria Allred.

"I felt embarrassed because I had a secret about the biggest celebrity in the world at the time and it was just me, just my word against his," Ms Johnson said.

"And I was very afraid."

Cosby's wife Camille, was not in court. But actress Keshia Knight Pulliam, who played his daughter Rudy on The Cosby Show in the 1980s and '90s, was at his side as he made his way into the building. She told reporters she was there to support her TV dad.

"I want to be the person that I would like to have if the tables were turned," she said.

"Right now it's the jury's job and the jury's decision to determine guilt or innocence. It's not mine or anyone else's."

AP

Topics: sexual-offences, arts-and-entertainment, community-and-society, united-states