NEW YORK — Bill Cosby testified Tuesday that he made secret payments over the years to the woman who claims to be his daughter and who prosecutors charge tried to extort $40 million from him.
The flow of money stopped only after Autumn Jackson approached CBS and his sponsors, threatening to tell a tabloid newspaper she was his illegitimate child, Cosby said.
"It is the end of what I am paying for . . . I feel it is irreversible," Cosby testified, recalling his feelings as he instructed his lawyer to tell Shawn Upshaw, Jackson's mother, of the demand.
Cosby said he had a brief affair with Upshaw in Las Vegas in the early 1970s, and over the years, he gave her a total of $100,000.
"Who instituted the affair?" Cosby was asked.
"I did," he replied.
Cosby said he sometimes gave Jackson pep talks over the phone, encouraging her to stay in school and better herself, but he never told her she could call him father.
"It was rah, rah, rah, sis boom bah," Cosby said. "I tried not to make it rough and hard. I would say call me. I said one day, 'I am not your father. I will be for you a father figure.' "
Cosby said he once backed out of a paternity blood test he proposed conducting with Jackson and her mother in Chicago, fearing a "bounty hunter" would leak the news of the test to the tabloids.
As the perfect world of television's Huxtable family and the far-from-perfect world of Jackson and her co-defendants clashed in federal court, Jackson's lawyer concluded his cross-examination with a question.
Robert Baum asked Cosby if he recalled saying in his best-selling book "Fatherhood" that the commitment of having children can't be part time.
"Yes," Cosby replied.
Jackson and co-defendant Jose Medina, 51, of Bethesda, Ohio, were arrested in the Manhattan offices of Cosby's lawyer in January after traveling from Los Angeles to collect $24 million from the comedian in exchange for not selling their story to the Globe, a tabloid newspaper. A third defendant, Boris Sabas, 42, of Los Angeles, was later arrested and charged with participating in the alleged plot. Defense lawyers contend Jackson wasn't committing a crime, merely conducting negotiations with the representative of someone she believed was her father.
Cosby testified he met Upshaw in the early 1970s at a hotel in Los Angeles, asked her to dance and asked for her telephone number. He said he subsequently called her and invited her to Las Vegas.
