Comedian’s attorneys insist charges flawed
The defense is expected to try to block witnesses and his 2005 testimony.
philadelphia » Bill Cosby’s lawyers went on the attack Thursday after the comedian’s arrest, calling the sexual assault charges a flawed, politically motivated case that will not hold up in court.
They are expected to try to gut the prosecution’s case or get it thrown out altogether by a variety of means, including preventing some of Cosby’s numerous other accusers from taking the stand, blocking the use of testimony he gave in a decade- old lawsuit and making an issue out of the 12 years it took to file charges.
“I have my doubts they get this to a jury anytime soon,” said Los Angeles defense attorney Mark Geragos, noting the thorny legal issues and Cosby’s advanced age ( 78) and infirmities, namely his badly deteriorating eyesight. Geragos added: “Generally, time is a friend of the defense.”
A look at some of the likely battleground issues:
OTHER ACCUSERS: While Cosby is chargedwith drugging and sexually assaulting just one woman, Andrea Constand, legal experts predict a key pretrial battle overwhether some of the dozens of other women who have accused the comedian of violating them can testify, too, to prove he had a “modus operandi.”
“Prior bad acts” are sometimes allowed as evidence in criminal cases, but judges often take a dim view of such testimony because it can be so damaging. They typically require prosecutors to prove it is directly relevant.
“We don’t want a jury to say, ‘ If he did it once before, he must have done it now,’” said Philadelphia attorney Jeffrey Lindy, who is unconnected to the Cosby case.
Lindy helped defend a Catholic Church official whose childendangerment conviction for shielding a pedophile priest was overturned by an appeals court in December.
The reason: The prosecution put on weeks of testimony about the handling of 21 other priests under suspicion, even though the defendant wasn’t charged in connection with any of them. The appeals court called it overkill — in legal terms, more prejudicial than probative.
PRETRIAL PUBLICITY: Cosby’s arrest came after a blizzard of sensational allegations that destroyed his nice- guy image. The effects of the publicity are likely to be an extremely important consideration in picking a jury, said Hank Asbill, a criminal defense lawyer in Washington.
“People are going to have opinions about him one way or another,” Asbill said, “based on his notoriety and his popularity as a celebrity. And people are also going to have opinions about the case.”
POLITICS: On Thursday, Cosby lawyer Monique Pressley accused Montgomery County District Attorney- elect Kevin R. Steele of playing politics with Cosby and filing charges against him to make good on a campaign promise.
Steele, currently the No. 2 prosecutor in the DA’s office, was elected district attorney in November in a hotly contested race in which the Cosby case played a central role. Steele ran ads attacking his opponent, former District Attorney Bruce Castor, for not prosecuting Cosby when Constand went to police in 2005.
COSBY’S CIVIL DEPOSITION: Weeks after the decision not to prosecute Cosby in 2005, Constand sued Cosby for sexual battery. He settled a year later after he gave nearly 1,000 pages of deposition testimony. Among other things, Cosby admitted that he had repeatedly pursued sex with younger, often- struggling models and actresses and that he obtained quaaludes to give to some of them.
Cosby’s civil lawyers have appealed the unsealing, and his criminal attorneys will no doubt fight to keep them out of the trial.