Polanski and Cosby expelled as members of Oscars Academy
BILL COSBY, the disgraced comic, and Roman Polanski, the director, have been expelled by the organisers of the Oscars.
The US Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said the decision was made in accordance with its code of conduct after Cosby was last week convicted of sexual assault. He is on house arrest awaiting sentencing that could put him in prison for the rest of his life.
Polanski, 84, is living in Paris, France, and remains a fugitive after fleeing the US in 1978 after pleading guilty to unlawful sex with a teenager. The decision comes 16 years after he won best director at the Oscars for The Pianist.
A statement from the organisation behind the Oscars said: “The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ board of governors met on Tuesday night (May 1) and has voted to expel actor Bill Cosby and director Roman Polanski from its membership in accordance with the organisation’s standards of conduct.
“The board continues to encourage ethical standards that require members to uphold the Academy’s values of respect for human dignity.”
Cosby’s wife yesterday called for a criminal investigation into the prosecutor behind the comedian’s sexual assault conviction, saying the case was “mob justice”.
Camille Cosby, 74, made her first comments on the verdict in a threepage statement sent to the media through a family spokesman.
She compared her husband of 54 years, convicted a week ago on three counts of aggravated indecent assault, to Emmett Till, a 14-year-old Africanamerican lynched in Mississippi in 1955, and other black people mistreated by the justice system.
“Once again, an innocent person has been found guilty based on an unthinking, unquestioning, unconstitutional frenzy propagated by the media and allowed to play out in a supposed court of law,” she said. “This is mob justice, not real justice. This tragedy must be undone not just for Bill Cosby, but for the country.”
Mrs Cosby claimed Andrea Constand, his chief accuser, was a liar whose testimony about being drugged and molested at Cosby’s home in January 2004 was “riddled with innumerable, dishonest contradictions”.
She echoed Cosby’s lawyers, who alleged that Constand framed him to score a big payday. Her statement did not address behaviour Cosby has admitted to, such as philandering and a contention that he was having a consensual affair with Constand.
Dolores Troiani, Constand’s lawyer, bristled at the statement and asked: “Why would any reputable outlet publish that? Twelve honourable jurors – peers of Cosby – have spoken. There is nothing else that needs to be said.”
Ms Constand said in a tweet last week that “truth prevails”. The jury said she was “credible and compelling”.
Mrs Cosby, 74, stayed away from both of her husband’s trials, except for the defence’s closing arguments.
Ms Constand sued Cosby in 2005 when prosecutors dropped a criminal investigation after four weeks. Cosby settled for nearly $3.4million (£2.5 million) after giving four days of depositions, including testimony about giving sedatives to women before sex.
Mrs Cosby compared the dozens of other women who accused her husband to a “lynch mob” spurred on by the media’s “frenzied, relentless demonisation” of the man who earned a reputation as “America’s Dad” playing Dr Cliff Huxtable on The Cosby Show. Steele’s office declined to comment. Cosby’s lawyers said that he intends to appeal.