Cosby to Constand: Give me back my money

PHILADELPHIA » Bill Cosby wants Andrea Constand to give back the money he paid her in a confidential settlement a decade ago, saying she violated that agreement by helping Montgomery County prosecutors build the current sexual assault case against him last year.

The request is part of a breach-of-contract lawsuit Cosby filed in federal court in Philadelphia earlier this month, parts of which have been unsealed this week. In it, the 78-year-old entertainer contends their 2006 deal barred Constand from voluntarily discussing the case with authorities.

Other terms of the settlement, including any financial payout, have never been disclosed.

Lawyers for Cosby allege Constand, as a Canadian citizen who now lives in Toronto, had no obligation to cooperate with Montgomery County prosecutors when they reached out to her as they sought to revive their investigation into her claims Cosby drugged and assaulted her in 2004. The suit was filed under seal Feb. 1, the day before a pivotal hearing in Cosby’s criminal case in which his lawyers unsuccessfully tried to persuade a Montgomery County Common Pleas Court judge to throw out the charges.

On Thursday, a partially redacted version of the complaint became public.

Constand’s lawyers — Dolores Troiani and Bebe Kivitz — both of whom testified at Cosby’s pretrial hearing two weeks’s ago, are named as defendants in the breach-of-contract dispute. So is Constand’s mother, Gianna Constand, and the publisher of The National Enquirer.

Cosby’s lawyers maintain that they both signed a nondisclosure agreement with their client in 2006 that should prevent them from currently discussing the case with authorities.

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©2016 The Philadelphia Inquirer