Names and faces

Bill Cosby speaks during a public memorial service for Philadelphia Inquirer co-owner Lewis Katz at Temple University in Philadelphia in this June 2014 file photo.
Bill Cosby speaks during a public memorial service for Philadelphia Inquirer co-owner Lewis Katz at Temple University in Philadelphia in this June 2014 file photo.

Bill Cosby’s lawyers on Monday appealed a judge’s decision to unseal court filings that quote him saying he obtained quaaludes to give women before sexual encounters.

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AP

Joe Jackson is shown in Cannes, southern France, in this May 2014 file photo.

The newly public court filings contain excerpts of Cosby’s deposition in a 2005 lawsuit in Pennsylvania that accused him of sexual battery and were unsealed July 6 on a bid by The Associated Press. The full deposition has since been released by a court reporting service and contains Cosby’s only testimony under oath about accusations he sexually assaulted a string of women, including the plaintiff, former Temple University employee Andrea Constand.

Cosby acknowledged several of the encounters but said they were consensual.

More than two dozen women have accused him of molesting them, sometimes after they had been drugged. Two lawsuits are pending, a defamation suit in Massachusetts and a civil sexual-assault case in California.

Cosby’s lawyers did not immediately return calls for comment Monday from the AP. They have not yet outlined the reasons for their appeal — and many of the deposition excerpts have been widely distributed since their July 6 release.

U.S. District Judge Eduardo Robreno unsealed 16 court filings after concluding that the “stark contrast between Bill Cosby, the public moralist, and Bill Cosby, the subject of serious allegations concerning improper (and perhaps criminal) conduct,” was a matter of public interest.

Joe Jackson, the father of the late Michael Jackson and patriarch of the musical family, suffered a stroke while visiting Brazil and was hospitalized in the intensive care unit of a Sao Paulo hospital, the facility said Monday.

The Albert Einstein hospital said in an emailed statement that Jackson was admitted on Sunday afternoon and was suffering from an irregular heartbeat. It did not provide any further details about Jackson’s condition, and a spokesman said the hospital did not have any further information.

But Nogueira Fresco, one of the organizers of a party that brought Jackson to Brazil for his 87th birthday on Sunday, said he was doing well. The fete marking Jackson’s birthday went ahead Saturday without its guest of honor. Local media reported he was not feeling well enough to attend.

Jackson has suffered minor strokes in the past, including one in 2012.

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