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		</div><p>A judge will let only one other accuser testify at Bill Cosby&#8217;s sexual assault trial to bolster charges that the actor drugged and molested a woman at his estate near Philadelphia.</p>
<p>The pivotal ruling by a Pennsylvania judge means prosecutors cannot call 12 other women to try to show that the 79-year-old comedian has a history of similar &#8220;bad acts&#8221;.</p>
<p>Cosby is set to go on trial in June over the 2005 complaint by former Temple University employee Andrea Constand, who is now a massage therapist in Toronto.</p>
<p>Prosecutors reopened the case in 2015 after newly released court documents showed Cosby admitting he gave drugs and alcohol to young women before sex over a 50-year period.</p>
<p>Prosecutors in suburban Philadelphia had asked the judge to let 13 other women testify, a list they developed after reviewing claims by nearly 50 of the accusers who have come forward in recent years.</p>
<p>The defence objected to their testimony, saying the string of old &#8220;casting couch&#8221; claims are not unique to Cosby and therefore not part of &#8220;signature&#8221; behaviour.</p>
<p>Montgomery County Judge Steven O&#8217;Neill said he carefully weighed the witnesses&#8217; value in providing relevant testimony versus the potential prejudice to Cosby.</p>
<p>The one witness who can testify alleges she was assaulted by Cosby in 1996 in Los Angeles.<br />
The ruling is one of two key pre-trial issues in the case.</p>
<p>Judge O&#8217;Neill had earlier ruled that jurors could hear Cosby&#8217;s damaging testimony from Ms Constand&#8217;s 2005 sexual battery lawsuit.</p>
<p>The deposition runs to nearly 1,000 pages and covers a string of Cosby&#8217;s extramarital affairs and liaisons dating back to the 1960s.</p>
<p>The revelations from the deposition led to scrutiny of the married father-of-five&#8217;s treatment of women over the last six decades &#8211; from his time as a fledgling comedian to his top-rated turn as Dr Cliff Huxtable in The Cosby Show in the 1980s and beyond.</p>
<p>Cosby&#8217;s criminal case involves a single encounter with Ms Constand, a former Temple University basketball team employee who has given the media permission to identify her publicly.</p>
<p>She told police he gave her three unmarked pills and then molested her as she drifted in and out of consciousness in early 2004.</p>
<p>In a taped conversation with Ms Constand&#8217;s mother a year later, Cosby described the sex act as &#8220;digital penetration&#8221; but refused to say what pills he had given her daughter. In his deposition, he said he had feared sounding like &#8220;a dirty old man&#8221; on the call.</p>
<p>The additional accuser who can testify worked for one of Cosby&#8217;s agents and had known the entertainer for six years when he invited her to lunch at his bungalow at the Bel Air Hotel to discuss her acting ambitions.</p>
<p>She alleged he was in a robe and slippers when she arrived and offered her wine and a pill that she consumed after he reassured her it was safe. She claimed she then recalls him sexually assaulting her on his bed.</p>
<p>The defence said she went to the bungalow despite saying she had once rebuffed Cosby&#8217;s advances before and had no interest in acting.</p>
<p>Among the other accusers who will not be allowed to testify, one said she was an aspiring actress when Cosby allegedly assaulted her at a home near Reno, Nevada, in 1984. Another alleged Cosby drugged and sexually assaulted her in the late 1960s after befriending her and her nine-year-old son.</p>
<p>Cosby&#8217;s lawyers had argued that he is a wealthy target for the many women he has met during his time in the limelight. His lawyers have said the accusers were being &#8220;paraded&#8221; before the media by celebrity lawyer Gloria Allred before their accounts are even vetted by police.</p>
<p>&#8220;We have seen a barrage of new accusers claiming &#8216;Me, too&#8217;,&#8221; defence lawyer Angela Agrusa said last year, arguing against the &#8220;prior bad act&#8221; testimony.</p>
<p>Cosby has pleaded not guilty and remains free on bail.</p>
<p>He has attended about half a dozen court hearings since his arrest on December 30 2015 and is expected in court again on Monday to ask that jurors be selected from another county because of pre-trial publicity.<br />
Judge O&#8217;Neill wants to start the trial by June 5.</p>
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