Bid to throw out Cosby case fails
Attorneys fight to limit testimony in sex assault trial
NORRISTOWN, Pa. — Bill Cosby made his first court appearance of the #Metoo era on Monday as defense lawyers tried without success to get his sexual assault case thrown out, then turned their attention to blocking some of the dozens of accusers from testifying at his looming retrial.
Cosby’s retooled defense team, led by former Michael Jackson lawyer Tom Mesereau, argued that telephone records, travel itineraries and other evidence show the alleged assault couldn’t have happened when his accuser says it did and thus falls outside the statute of limitations.
Judge Steven O’neill said he’d leave that for the jury to decide, rejecting a defense motion to dismiss the charges.
Cosby is charged with drugging and molesting a Temple University women’s basketball executive at his suburban Philadelphia home. Cosby said the encounter was consensual. A jury deadlocked on the case last year.
Prosecutors sought Monday to persuade the judge to allow as many as 19 other accusers to take the stand, including model Janice Dickinson.
Prosecutors said the women’s testimony is vital to refuting the defense team’s “inevitable attacks” on the credibility of accuser Andrea Constand.
The accusers will provide evidence 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,” said Assistant District Attorney Adrienne D. Jappe.
Cosby’s lawyers have argued that some of the other accusers’ allegations date to the 1960s and present the defense with a nearly impossible burden. They say they will seek to delay the retrial if any of the women are permitted to testify.
O’neill said he would not rule on whether to allow the testimony by the end of the two-day hearing.
The judge allowed just one other accuser to take the stand at Cosby’s first trial, barring any mention of about 60 others who have come forward to accuse Cosby.
Jury selection in the retrial is slated to begin March 29.
Earlier Monday, the defense disputed Constand’s testimony at last year’s trial that he drugged and molested her in January 2004. Constand didn’t give a specific date, but said the incident had to have happened prior to Jan. 20, when her cousin moved into her apartment.
Cosby’s lawyers told O’neill they’d found evidence that Cosby wasn’t even in Pennsylvania during that time.
The date is important because Cosby wasn’t arrested until Dec. 30, 2015 — meaning any assault prior to Dec. 30, 2003, would have fallen outside the 12-year statute of limitations.