Cosby case focuses on who’ll testify
During hearing, prosecutors call for more accusers to appear
NORRISTOWN, Pa. — Bill Cosby made his first court appearance of the #MeToo era Monday as defense lawyers tried without success to get his sexual assault case thrown out, then turned their attention to blocking some of the 80-year-old comedian’s dozens of accusers from testifying at his looming retrial.
Prosecutors are trying to persuade the judge to allow as many as 19 other women to take the stand, including model Janice Dickinson, as they attempt to show the comedian had a long history of drugging and attacking women.
They’re also trying to insulate Cosby’s accuser, Andrea Constand, from what a prosecutor called “inevitable attacks” on her credibility.
Allowing other women to take the stand will show jurors that Cosby “systematically engaged in a signature pattern of providing an intoxicant to his young female victim and then sexually assaulting her when she became incapacitated,” Assistant District Attorney Adrienne D. Jappe told the judge.
Cosby’s lawyers will address the issue in court today. They’ve argued in writing that some of the women’s allegations date to the 1960s and are impossible to defend against, given that some witnesses are dead, memories are faded and evidence has been lost.
Judge Steven O’Neill said he would not rule on whether to allow the testimony by the end of the two-day hearing, calling it an “extraordinarily weighty issue” that he needs time to review.
The judge allowed just one other accuser to take the stand at Cosby’s first trial last year, barring any mention of about 60 others who have come forward to accuse Cosby in recent years.
The only other hint that jurors got of Cosby’s past came from deposition excerpts from 2005 and 2006 in which the star admitted giving quaaludes to women he wanted to have sex with.
Cosby has said his encounter with Constand was consensual. A jury deadlocked on the case last year, setting the stage for a retrial.
Earlier Monday, O’Neill rejected a defense motion to dismiss charges.
Monday’s hearing came just 10 days after Cosby’s 44-year-old daughter, Ensa, died of kidney disease.