KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:

Entertainer and comedian Bill Cosby has admitted to giving sedatives to a woman he wanted to have sex with. That's according to court documents from 2005 that have just been obtained by the associated press. The documents reveal that Cosby testified under oath in a lawsuit filed by a former Temple University employee. That case was later settled out of court. For more on this development, we now turn to Maryclaire Dale. She's the reporter for the AP who broke the story. Welcome to the program.

MARYCLAIRE DALE: Thank you.

MCEVERS: So first, tell us, what are these documents? And what is the lawsuit that they're connected with?

DALE: These documents are motions that were filed in 2005 and 2006 as part of the lawsuit filed by the Temple University woman. She'd gone to police saying that she had been - she believed she had been drugged and sexually assaulted at Cosby's home where she had gone for dinner and to meet with him about career advice. But prosecutors declined to bring charges, and she later filed a civil suit.

MCEVERS: What does Cosby say in the documents?

DALE: In the documents, we only see excerpts of his full sworn testimony that he gave in the deposition. But we - even in the excerpts, we see that he acknowledges having prescriptions in the 1970s for Quaaludes, and he says he obtained them for use - having sex with women. He goes on to say, in questioning from the accusers lawyer, that he gave Quaaludes to other people, that he gave them to at least one of the woman accusers. And he says that, again, he obtained the prescription for the purpose of using them to have sex with young women.

MCEVERS: And what was the judge's reason for sealing these documents and then, today, unsealing them?

DALE: They were sealed at the time, as - they were temporarily sealed at the time, and the judge never ruled on a permanent seal before the case settled. The Associated Press had tried back in 2006 to have the documents unsealed, but we were unsuccessful. But there's a rule in the federal court in Pennsylvania that documents should be unsealed after a few years unless someone shows good cause. Lawyers for Cosby argued that they would prove terribly embarrassing, but the judge today said that's not enough to keep them sealed.

MCEVERS: And will these documents have an effect on other lawsuits that are pending against Cosby?

DALE: Lawyers for some of the other accusers say they well may. They are very interested in the documents because three women are suing him in Massachusetts for defamation, saying that when his agents denied their claims that they were drugged and sexually assaulted by Cosby, that he was, in fact, calling them liars. And so they're suing him for defamation. Of course, it's been too many years to file sexual assault claims, so they're suing him for defamation. And they believe that these statements that he gave in sworn testimony will corroborate the allegations.

MCEVERS: That's Maryclaire Dale of the Associated Press. Thank you so much.

DALE: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.