Cohen spent several hours explaining how, years ago, the gifts he gave, the jokes he told and the efforts he made to help the teenage girls in his life were either mischaracterized or misunderstood, and how the worst things they've said about him during his trial aren't true.
Of those who testified about Cohen's alleged sexual misconduct, the most damning came from a woman he is not charged with assaulting but who claimed on the witness stand that he'd sexually assaulted her when she was 15 and he was in his late 20s.
It never happened, said Cohen, 55. When he'd heard she'd said so, he couldn't believe she would do that to him. He went straight to her mother, the two of them confronted her, she refused to talk, and that was the end of it.
"She's made up stories before," he claims her mother told him.
As for his daughter -- the only one he's charged with abusing -- he doesn't know why she would say the things she's said.
Cohen was an 11-year Anchorage police officer when he was arrested in 2005 and charged with 10 counts of second-degree sexual abuse of a minor, five counts of exploiting a minor and six counts of possessing child pornography. His first trial in March 2008 ended in a mistrial when his daughter, who couldn't be found, suddenly surfaced.
Now 23, she flew in from active duty in Iraq for this second trial, and was the first witness called by the prosecution two weeks ago.
She squirmed and gave brief, sometimes barely audible answers to prosecutor John Skidmore's questions. At one point, he asked her to point to or describe a private birthmark her father allegedly touched when she was 14.
She started to stand. She sat back down. She started to speak. No words came out. She couldn't do it.
"It's really embarrassing," she said in practically a whisper. "It's still embarrassing."
She ended up drawing her answer instead.
With her father, who has experience testifying from his police officer days, there was no fidgeting. Questioned by his attorney, John Cashion, he gave relaxed, confident and articulate answers.
Cashion asked him point-blank about the most damaging charges against him.
Did he ever grope his daughter?
"No sir."
Did he take the nude pictures of her?
"No sir."
That the photos exist is not in question. They do and the jury has seen them. Cohen said he didn't know who took them.
Earlier in the trial, a former girlfriend's sister testified that one time while she was underage and staying at their place, he jumped in the shower with her.
Yes, she was in the shower, Cohen said. He was late for work, and was just trying to get her out. He said something like, "Hey, hurry up. I need to get in there." She was like, "Yeah, yeah."
Finally, he walked in and shook the shower curtain. "I'm getting in now," he told her. But he really didn't mean it. And he never got in with her. What happened, he said, was she surprised him by leaping out and running from the bathroom, giving him a glimpse of her bare backside.
That's how it went all morning, Cohen denying one accusation after another.
Woven into his testimony were snippets of the kind of guy he really is -- his devotion to his military life, his love of books, how he was "very much of a fidelity person." How girls walking around the house in their undies is no big deal when you live in a house full of women.
"I was the only male in the house," he said. "Even the Rottweiler was a female."
Only once did he get emotional, and that was when he talked about the last time he ever spanked one of his girls, and how it made him cry.
It was all too much for the prosecution. After the jury was dismissed for the day, Skidmore complained about Cohen making himself sound like a saint while making disparaging comments about his accusers. The attorneys will be discussing this matter further with the judge before the return of the jury. Due to a scheduling conflict, that won't be until next Thursday.
Find Debra McKinney online at adn.com/contact/dmckinney or call 257-4465.
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