Never thought I’d see the day when there would be a legal
debate in Montgomery County Court having anything to do with Spanish fly.
Sure, it’s previously been mentioned in pop culture, films,
TV shows and music, but it’s been years since I’ve heard it mentioned in any
kind of public forum. But all of a sudden, due to a few court filings in the Bill
Cosby case, Spanish fly is making national news.
I learned a few things about Spanish fly this week from Cosby’s
lawyers.
“According to Oxford University, Spanish fly is “[a] toxic
preparation of the dried bodies of Spanish fly beetles, formerly used in
medicine as a counterirritant and sometimes taken as an aphrodisiac.” An
aphrodisiac is “[a] food, drink, or other thing that stimulates sexual desire,”
defense lawyers Brian J. McMonagle and Angela C. Agrusa wrote in court papers.
McMonagle and Agrusa said Cosby, in his comedic material,
developed jokes referencing the substance as an aphrodisiac, most notably in
his 1969 album, “It’s True! It’s True!”
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| Brian J. McMonagle/ Photo by Carl Hessler Jr. |
“The jokes make fun of the high libidos of thirteen-year-old
boys and the way they gossip amongst themselves on how to get girls,” defense
lawyers wrote, adding in 1991 Cosby authored a book, “Childhood,” which
contained “a fanciful tale” of 13 year olds “on an urban quest to obtain the
mythical substance to improve their chances with girls.”
In promoting that book, McMonagle and Agrusa said, Cosby
appeared on Larry King’s CNN program and rehashed a version of the Spanish fly
material that he had developed decades earlier and included in his book.
Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin R. Steele sees it
a different way.
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| Montco DA Kevin Steele/Submitted Photo |
Cosby’s words came back to haunt him this week when Steele
filed papers seeking to use excerpts from Cosby’s book and the “The Larry King
Show” as evidence at Cosby’s upcoming trial in connection with his alleged
sexual assault of Andrea Constand, a former Temple University athletic
department employee, after plying her with blue pills and wine at his
Cheltenham home sometime between mid-January and mid-February 2004.
Steele argued the excerpts “are relevant to proving that
(Cosby) had knowledge of a date-rape drug, and a motive and intent to use it on
the victim” and also suggest Cosby “had a willingness and motive to push
‘chemicals’ to obtain sex from the otherwise unwilling victim.”
Steele, quoting from Cosby’s book, contends the actor
recounted a memory from his youth in which he and his friends seek out “Spanish
Fly, an aphrodisiac so potent that it could have made Lena Horne surrender to
Fat Albert.”
But McMonagle and Agrusa quoted another passage from 'Childhood' - “We
were feeling the way that the soldiers of Ponce de Leon must have felt when
they began to search for the Fountain of Youth” - to suggest that the antics to
which Cosby referred “were centered on a Quixotic adventure through the minds
of teenaged boys.”
“The story is about fantasy, not real life, legends created
by the active imaginations of teenaged boys,” defense lawyers claimed. “Even
one of the passages that (prosecutors) would like to use to condemn Mr. Cosby
demonstrates the absurdity of this tale: trying to find ‘an aphrodisiac so
potent that it could have made Lena Horne surrender to Fat Albert’ is a comical
way of signaling that the boys’ exploits were completely in the realm of
fantasy – how else would a glamorous move star ‘surrender to’ a pre-pubescent
boy in Philadelphia?”
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| Bill Cosby Arrest Photo |
McMonagle and Agrusa said “Mr. Cosby’s Spanish Fly
Shtick” is not a joke about assault, rape or drugging someone.
“The fact that the commonwealth is distorting humor into
some menacing plot by divorcing it from its context is exactly the reason why
the topic of Spanish fly should be excluded from trial,” McMonagle and Agrusa
responded. “This is a form of artistic expression and social commentary. The
vast majority of the material he developed over the last fifty years never
happened in real life. It was for humor.”
So, is it a “mythical substance," a form of artistic expression and social commentary, the object of “the active
imaginations of teenaged boys” and humor that prosecutors are “distorting,” as
McMonagle and Agrusa contend?
Or is it a reference to a “date-rape drug” that suggests
Cosby “had access to, knowledge of, and a motive and intent to knowingly use
substances that would render a female unconscious for the purpose of engaging
in sex acts,” as Steele contends?
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| Montco Judge Steven T. O'Neill/ Submitted photo |
We could find out Monday what county Judge Steven T. O’Neill thinks when he holds a hearing to determine if the Spanish fly references made by Cosby will
be evidence at his upcoming sexual assault trial.
Stay tuned.
