Next for Cosby, hearing on change of venue

NORRISTOWN >> With Friday’s ruling by a judge settling the issue of who can testify at entertainer Bill Cosby’s sexual assault trial there is only one other matter to be considered – from which county will jurors be selected.

Montgomery County Judge Steven T. O’Neill will begin weighing that issue on Monday when he presides over a hearing to consider Cosby’s request to move his trial to another county or to select a jury from another county.

Cosby, 79, who faces charges he assaulted Andrea Constand, a former Temple University athletic department employee, after plying her with blue pills and wine at his home sometime between mid-January and mid-February 2004, will be required to be in court for the hearing on his change of venue or venire request.

In court papers filed in December, Cosby, through his lawyers Brian J. McMonagle and Angela C. Agrusa, asked the judge to move Cosby’s trial to another county, a change of venue, or to select a jury from another county, a change of venire, because “closer to home” prospective jurors have been subjected to extensive, sustained and pervasive negative coverage about Cosby and a fair jury cannot be selected in Montgomery County.

District Attorney Kevin R. Steele has indicated prosecutors would agree to select a jury from another county and allow the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to choose the county from which the jury would be selected for Cosby’s June 5 trial. Under that scenario, the jury that is selected would then be brought back to Montgomery County and be sequestered for the trial.

However, while agreeing to select a jury from another county, Steele opposes Cosby’s request for hearings at which he could present a case for the specific venire of his choice.

Steele also opposes a more drastic change of venue.

Steele said his agreeing to a change of venire was offered in order to streamline the case as he is working to bring Cosby to trial as soon as possible.

Under state law, once a change of venire is granted it is the Pennsylvania Supreme Court that selects the locale. A judge must sign an order directing the state court to begin that process.

Steele previously argued that holding hearings on the issue will only fuel Cosby’s “continued strategy of delay and distraction.”