“Who gave you the Quaaludes?” Comedian Bill Cosby’s defense attorney Tom Mesereau asked Janice Baker-Kinney. “Bill Cosby,” she replied quickly. Mesereau asked again rapidly, “No, who gave you the Quaaludes? You said you took a Quaalude before the party,” taking a short but noticeable pause before asking again: “Who gave you the Quaaludes?”
Baker-Kinney, slowly putting her head down quietly answered, “a friend.”
Mesereau cross-examined Janice Baker-Kinney, who alleges Cosby assaulted her in 1986 while working as a bartender at Harrah’s casino in Reno when she said a co-worker invited her to a pizza party at his home.
Mesereau’s 2015 CNN Interview Ties Closely to His Defense
Mesereau, while participating in an interview on CNN with attorney Gloria Allred prior to being retained to represent Bill Cosby stated:
“First of all, many celebrities are victims of false accusations and they’ll pay money to end the ordeal and spare their family having to go through all this. Michael Jackson freely admitted that he paid almost $20 million. He went to trial and was exonerated of every allegation. Ten felonies and four misdemeanors.”
CNN asked Mesereau if he were representing Bill Cosby, what would he argue?
“There has to be a thorough investigation into these women. Everything about their background has to be checked. Who were they 40 years ago? What were their morals? What was their behavior like? Did they go to parties where drugs were being handed out? Did they bring drugs to those parties? Why did they approach Mr. Cosby? What did they want to get out of him? I’d like to know who they really were. They have to be aggressively questioned to find out exactly what happened and what didn’t happen. This is forty years later and they’re suddenly coming out making these accusations? Something seems wrong to me.”
3 Years Later: Mesereau Delivers Cross Examination to Cosby Accuser
“You kept a souvenir of the man you say assaulted you in your collection of souvenirs?” Mesereau curiously asked Kinney-Baker. Her response? “Yes.”
“You went to several parties, correct?” Mesereau asked. “Yes, a few,” Kinney-Baker replied.
Allred, sitting in the courtroom behind the prosecution likely had an idea where this was going, given her debate with Mesereau a few years back.
“There were drugs at these parties correct?” Mesereau said. “I don’t know,” Kinney-Baker slowly stated. “I didn’t take drugs when I went to parties with Wayne Newton.”
“You told police you had experimenting with drugs your whole life?” Mesereau asked. “In high school after I smoked a little pot I probably tried something called, I guess, uppers, a couple of times.” Kinney-Baker replied. “I wasn’t an everyday drug addict, just on the weekends.”
Mesereau: “Did you use cocaine?”
Janice Kinney-Baker: “I did but not then. I used cocaine later on in life.”
Mesereau: Did you tell police that you had experimented with drugs around this period?
Janice Kinney-Baker: I told police that I experimented with drugs. I was not using cocaine at that party of before that party. It wasn’t like I was a major drug addict. It was recreational use. I’ll tell you what I did have a problem with, and that was alcohol, and I haven’t had a drink or a drug in over 20 years.
Mesereau: But Mrs. baker-Kinney, you told police in one of your interviews you had experimented with drugs in your younger years, correct?
Janice Kinney-Baker: I did! I smoked pot in high school. That was my younger days.
Mesereau: You told them [the police] you took LSD in 1974.
Janice Kinney-Baker: I did! That was my younger days. There was not much else to do there except go to work and hang out with all the other single people, so, I did drugs, in my younger days. I tried pot in high school. I tried LSD in high school. I had a roommate who sold cocaine when I lived n Reno, who I moved out from because of that reason. I did not do cocaine while I was living in Reno.
“I really got fucked up and slept with Bill Cosby.” Mesereau stated, asking Baker-Kinney if she remembers making that statement to her roommate.
“Yep, I told my sister that as well.” Janice Kinney-Baker told Mesereau.
Mesereau: “When did you decide it was Bill Cosby’s fault?”
Janice Kinney-Baker: “Not for many years, because I blamed myself.”
Mesereau: “When did you decide that instead of it being your fault for taking drugs and having sex with Mr. Cosby? When did you decide that was your decision?”
Janice Kinney-Baker: “When I told my husband years ago, he said that was rape. I think the seed was planted years ago. I haven’t uttered those words except in the past few years.”
Mesereau: “A couple years ago you firmly decided it was Bill Cosby’s fault and not yours?”
Janice Kinney-Baker: “Yes. I don’t like the word fault really, like I said, I still carry some fault.”
POOL PHOTO – Dominick Reuter/AFP
“So for 30 years you hadn’t suspected that someone had sexually assaulted you?” Mesereau asked. “Correct,” Kinney-Baker replied. “Now, in one of your interviews about this case you said words to the effect that ‘for 30 years I didn’t know I had been raped and when I heard what other people were saying I realized I had been raped, or words to that effect?” Mesereau asked, following up to his previous question.
“I have to think about how to answer that. For 30 years I didn’t really think about it. I didn’t want to think about it. I will tell you that women starting coming forward,” Kinney-Baker paused, then stating, “I don’t know if I’m allowed to say what I’m about to say.”
Judge Steven T. O’Neill instructed her to complete her sentence.
“I don’t know how to answer that question right now. Even if I knew I was raped 30 years ago, back then there was no acquaintance rape or date rape.”
Mesereau, stating that Kinney-Baker didn’t realize she was sexually assaulted until seeing other women claim Cosby drugged and sexually assaulted them, brought up the #MeToo movement. “Did anyone suggest you use one word opposed to another word? Did Allred decide what words you were going to use?” Mesereau asked.
“Things that are happening today that are in the news, things I’m sure many of us heard about. People feeling empowered enough to come forward about things that happened to them, feeling their strength,” Kinney-Baker continued. “I too was in the same position. I too did not live for many years. I too didn’t consider it sexual assault or rape because, women tend to blame themselves when things like this happen.”
“What you did then was you went to attorney Gloria Allred?” Mesereau asked, dropping the name of famed women’s rights attorney.
“No,” Kinney-Baker quickly replied. “I did not, in the way you’re insinuating.”
Mesereau: “Does she not represent you currently?”
Janice Kinney-Baker: “She represents me, not legally, but for media.”
Mesereau, baffled by her response, replied “Oh. Tell us about that. She represents you for the media appearances?”
Janice Kinney-Baker: “Yes.”
Mesereau: “And you pay her?”
Janice Kinney-Baker: “No.”
Mesereau: “Does the media pay her?”
Janice Kinney-Baker: “No. Not that I know of.”
Mesereau: “When did you hire Gloria Allred?”
Janice Kinney-Baker: “I didn’t hire her.”
Mesereau: “When did Gloria Allred hire you?”
Janice Kinney-Baker: “She did not hire me.”
Mesereau: “When did someone hire somebody so you could end up with a relationship with Gloria Allred?”
Janice Kinney-Baker: “There’s no hiring.”
Mesereau: “You’re issuing releases in the name of Gloria Allred, correct?”
Janice Kinney-Baker: “No. It’s in my name but she’s my contact attorney.”
Mesereau: “When did she become your contact attorney?”
Janice Kinney-Baker: “A couple years ago.”
Mesereau: “Around the same time you decided Mr. Cosby was responsible not you? correct?
Janice Kinney-Baker: “Correct.”
Mesereau: “Are you familiar with a $100 million program Gloria Allred is trying to put in effect?”
Janice Kinney-Baker: “I am not.”
Mesereau: “Have you ever heard of it?”
Janice Kinney-Baker: “I don’t know what it’s about, no.”
Mesereau: “Are you familiar about it?”
Janice Kinney-Baker: “No.”
Mesereau: “Did she ever talk to you about it?”
Janice Kinney-Baker: “No.”
Mesereau: “Did you ever talk to her about it?”
Janice Kinney-Baker: “No.”
Mesereau: “Has she ever talked about representing you in any litigation against Bill Cosby?”
Janice Kinney-Baker: “No.”
Mesereau: “Your lawyer, Mr. Allred, has been in the press saying ‘why don’t we just forget about the statute of limitations, lets have a big arbitration and lets put millions of dollars on the table so everybody gets paid, correct?”
Janice Kinney-Baker: “Oh, that, I did hear about that.”