In 2005, Bill Cosby admitted seeking drugs to give to women

Cosby's admission that he obtained Quaaludes to use on women was contained in a 10-year-old deposition given by the legendary comedian in a civil lawsuit filed by a Philadelphia woman who claimed he had molested her after surreptitiously drugging her. Some of the proceedings in the case were unsealed for the first time on Monday.

Documents containing excerpts of the deposition, first obtained by the Associated Press, appear to support one element of the repeated allegations of sexual assault lodged against Cosby, some of which date to the late 1960s. More than a dozen women have said Cosby sexually assaulted them after they were rendered unconscious or incapacitated by unknown substances.

However, Cosby did not admit to any criminal activity in the documents; the deposition was taken as part of a lawsuit filed by Andrea Constand, a Temple University employee who said Cosby molested her. The lawsuit was settled out of court.

Cosby has denied all wrongdoing and has never been charged with a crime, and he and his representatives have steadfastly denied the assault claims by a succession of women. He said in his deposition that he gave Constand only three half-pills of Benadryl, an over-the-counter allergy medication.

"Finally, after all this time, we get the truth out of this man," said Barbara Bowman, who alleged that Cosby sexually assaulted her in the 1980s, when she was a young model. "I have been screaming this story to an empty room for 30 years. It's very validating."

In a deposition taken in late September 2005, Cosby was asked by Dolores Troiani, Constand's attorney, "When you got the Quaaludes, was it in your mind that you were going to use these Quaaludes for young women that you wanted to have sex with?"

Cosby replied: "Yes."

Cosby's lawyers said he did not have Quaaludes during the time he knew Constand and did not give them to her.

Cosby admitted in the deposition to getting seven prescriptions for Quaaludes in the 1970s. He also admitted to meeting one unidentified woman after a performance in Las Vegas and offering her the drug. "I give her Quaaludes. We then have sex," he said.

Cosby also said he agreed to give an interview to the National Enquirer in exchange for an agreement not to publish an interview with Beth Ferrier, a model who accused Cosby of raping her. Ferrier was one of a dozen "Jane Does" who were prepared to testify on Constand's behalf about the comedian's alleged molestation of them.

Cosby testified he was given a copy of the Enquirer article in advance, prompting him to make the agreement.

The Associated Press went to court to compel the release of the documents.

Cosby's attorneys sought to keep the documents private, arguing that there was no right of public access to them. They also argued that unsealing the documents posed a "real, specific threat of serious embarrassment."

On Monday, U.S. District Judge Eduardo Robreno unsealed the records, writing that Cosby "has donned the mantle of public moralist and mounted the proverbial electronic or print soap box to volunteer his views on, among other things, childrearing, family life, education, and crime. To the extent that Defendant has freely entered the public square and 'thrust himself into the vortex of (these public issues),' he has voluntarily narrowed the zone of privacy that he is entitled to claim."

Cosby's attorneys did not immediately return phone calls.