Cosby sex assault appeal takes on prosecution deal

PHILADELPHIA — Bill Cosby’s lawyers argued in an appeals filing Thursday that it was “fundamentally unfair” to let prosecutors use Cosby’s damaging deposition from a sex accuser’s lawsuit against him at trial.

Cosby believes he had a binding promise from a prosecutor that he could never be charged in the case, and said testimony from five other accusers about encounters that took place years — or even decades — earlier had improperly prejudiced the jury against him.

A spokeswoman for the Montgomery County district attorney’s office declined comment but said prosecutors would file a response in the coming month.

Cosby, 83, is serving a three- to 10-year prison term after the jury in his 2018 sex assault trial convicted him of three counts of felony sex assault over a 2004 encounter with accuser Andrea Constand.

The filing claims a deposition by Cosby regarding the use of Quaaludes and allegations of uncharged sexual misconduct with about a half-dozen women “was irrelevant evidence that served no legitimate non-propensity purpose.”

Cosby’s lawyers argued those incidents occurred too long ago and that they lacked “any striking similarities” or comparable facts to the crimes he was tried for.

A former prosecutor had declined to prosecute Cosby when she went to police in 2005. However, another prosecutor reopened the case in 2015 after The Associated Press successfully petitioned a federal judge to unseal filings in the lawsuit she filed against him, including Cosby’s deposition testimony about a string of sexual encounters with young women over the years