*After attempting for weeks to avoid being deposed in a defamation lawsuit filed against her husband Bill Cosby, Camille Cosby went through with it on Monday and agreed to return next month to answer even more questions under oath.
The deposition, believed to be the first Camille Cosby has given since dozens of women came forward to accuse her husband of sexual assault, was given under heavy security at the Springfield Marriott hotel, according to The Associated Press. She has publicly stood by him as he faces dozens of sexual-assault allegations.
Camille Cosby and her lawyers met with lawyers for the seven women suing her husband for about seven or eight hours Monday. A lawyer for the women, Joseph Cammarata, said she spent about 2 1/2 hours answering questions and the rest of the time was a back and forth between lawyers on what she could or should answer. He said a judge had to be contacted twice.
Cammarata wouldn’t characterize his questions to Camille Cosby, but he said she was in a unique position to know a lot about Bill Cosby because she has been married to him for 52 years and has been his business manager.
“She’s his wife,” he said. “She has the ability to live with him, be with him … understand who he associates with.”
When asked afterward about her demeanor under questioning, he replied, “She was someone that was reserved, and I got the sense she really didn’t want to be there.”
She continues the deposition on March 14, but the location hasn’t been determined, according to The AP.
Lawyers for Bill Cosby, 78, and Camille Cosby, 71, have argued that she does not have any information on the accuracy of the women’s claims and that her conversations with him are confidential under the state marital disqualification rule.
The Cosbys have a home in Shelburne Falls, about an hour’s drive from Springfield, where the lawsuit, seeking unspecified damages, was filed.
Cosby’s lawyers have said in court papers the deposition is “nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to pressure (the) defendant in the face of subjecting his wife to the shame and embarrassment of responding to questions about his alleged infidelities and sexual misconduct.”
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