‘Evidence has changed’ in looming Cosby retrial
The same world-famous comedian — a man once embraced as “America’s Dad” — will be seated at the defense table.
His accuser will recount again the allegations that helped to destroy his career.
But as Bill Cosby’s retrial on sexual-assault charges begins this week, the second courtroom showdown between the 80-year-old entertainer and Andrea Constand is shaping up to be no simple repeat of the first.
More than 180 potential jurors have been summoned to appear today at the Montgomery County, Pa., courthouse as lawyers will begin picking the panel that they hope can this time deliver a verdict.
Cosby returns to Norristown, Pa., with new lawyers and an aggressive new defense strategy that seeks to paint Constand, 44, as a gold-digging opportunist — one whom they say once told a confidant of a plot to extort money from the entertainer.
Prosecutors have bolstered their case, adding planned testimony from five additional accusers, including former model Janice Dickinson, whose accounts they hope can secure a conviction.
And as the proceedings that are expected to last about a month begin, even Judge Steven T. O’Neill said he is not quite sure what to expect.
“The evidence has changed in this case, pure and simple,” he said at a pretrial hearing Friday. “I don’t know what it is going to look like.”
If anything, the stakes have only increased in the 10 months since the first jurors to hear Constand’s allegations were unable to reach a unanimous decision, causing a mistrial.
Back then, the trial’s inconclusive outcome crushed Cosby’s more than 60 other accusers, many of whom had pinned their own hopes for justice on a guilty verdict in Constand’s case.
Now, as other powerful male celebrities such as Harvey Weinstein, Matt Lauer and Bill O’Reilly fall to past, long-hidden sexual improprieties, Cosby’s lawyers fear the new trial has taken on the weight of the #MeToo movement.
“Today we live in an environment where these accusations are easily accepted,” Cosby lawyer Becky James said at a court hearing in March. “There’s no way we’ll get a jury that hasn’t heard many, many accusations like this against other celebrities.”
Still, they remain confident that with this case and this accuser they can prevail.