Who is Andrea Constand? Former university employee has accused her 'mentor' Bill Cosby of sexual assault

Andrea Constand, the woman who claims to have been sexually assaulted by comedian Bill Cosby, is a former employee of Philadelphia's Temple University.

The 42-year-old first contacted police with allegations against Cosby in January 2005, accusing him of drugging and sexually assaulting her at his mansion in Elkins Park the previous year.

Constand says she first met Cosby – a Temple University alumni – in 2002, quickly becoming friends and regularly going for dinner at his home. While serving as the director of operations for Temple's women's basketball team, Constand said she looked upon Cosby as a "mentor".

Earlier this year, in an effort to disprove the 78-year-old's claims that he instinctively knows how to read a woman's sexual desires, Constand revealed that she was a lesbian. This proves, she says, that Cosby's claim to have had consensual sex with her must be a lie.

Constand says that upon arriving at Cosby's home one evening in January 2004, she informed him that she was feeling stressed about work. The comedian is said to have then handed her three pills of "herbal medication" which he said would help her relax and encouraged her to drink wine, the Daily Mail reported.

Constand reportedly claims that when she started to feel "dizzy and weak", Cosby gave her another pill, took her over to a sofa and sexually assaulted her while she was "barely conscious". She allegedly says she woke up to find her underwear "in disarray".

Cosby testified that he only gave Constand one and a half pills of over-the-counter antihistamine drug Benadryl on the night in question. He said the sex they had that evening was purely consensual, describing the interaction thus: "I don't hear her say anything. And I don't feel her say anything. And so I continue and I go into the area that is somewhere between permission and rejection. I am not stopped."

Constand's lawyers said: "Frozen, paralyzed, unable to move. A person in that state is unable to consent."

Prosecutors declined to press criminal charges against Cosby in February 2005 due to a lack of evidence. At the time of her court case, 13 women came forward with anonymous sworn statements to support Constand, saying that they, too, had been molested in some way by Cosby.

When the criminal charges were not pursued, Constand launched a civil suit against Cosby in March 2005. Cosby settled that suit for undisclosed terms a year later. Constand has since moved back to her native Canada where she is registered as a massage therapist in the city of Toronto, according to Global News.