A federal judge has revealed why he ordered sworn testimony by Bill Cosby in a 2005 deposition unsealed. As we previously reported, Cosby’s sworn testimony was released yesterday, after the Associated Press was successful in convincing a federal judge to unseal the documents.

According to NBC News, Cosby’s “lawyers had fought the documents’ release, saying it would be ‘terribly embarrassing.’ Last month, Cosby’s lawyers and lawyers for the AP argued over whether Cosby was a public figure entitled to a lesser degree of privacy.”

The story continues, saying that federal Judge Eduardo Robreno wrote on Monday, July 6, 2015, that the decision to release the sealed documents or not release them “is not about the Defendant’s status as a public person by virtue of the exercise of his trade as a televised or comedic personality. Rather, Defendant has donned the mantle of public moralist and mounted the proverbial electronic or print soap box to volunteer his views on, among other things, childrearing, family life, education, and crime.”

Thus, the story notes, “Cosby has made himself part of these public issues and therefore has ‘voluntarily narrowed the zone of privacy that he is entitled to claim,’ the judge wrote.”

The judge added, “The stark contrast between Bill Cosby, the public moralist, and Bill Cosby, the subject of serious allegations concerning improper (and perhaps criminal) conduct, is a matter as to which the AP — and by extension the public — has a significant interest.”

To read Judge Robreno’s full memo about why he unsealed the documents, please click here.