Cosby retrial delayed to 2018
NORRISTOWN » The sex assault retrial for entertainer Bill Cosby won’t begin until next spring and his new lawyers indicated they don’t oppose a jury being selected from Montgomery County.
After conferring with prosecutors and Cosby’s new defense team, county Judge Steven T. O’Neill said the retrial, previously slated to get under way Nov. 6, will begin sometime between March 15 and April 1 of next year. The judge said a final date, during that two week time span, will be set in the near future.
Addressing the delay, the judge said the new defense team, Tom
Mesereau, Kathleen Bliss and Samuel W. Silver, needs more time to review “the voluminous” court records and transcripts from Cosby’s June trial, which ended in a mistrial. The new defense team made its first appearance in court on Tuesday.
“It also gives the chance to be out of the winter months. It does appear a springtime start is what we’re looking at in this case,” O’Neill said as a pretrial hearing in the case wrapped up on Tuesday. “It has been a pleasure meeting new counsel. I look forward to working with you.”
Mesereau, of Los Angeles, who is well known for successfully representing singer Michael Jackson on molestation charges in 2004, told the judge “our strong inclination” is to select a jury from Montgomery County where Cosby’s alleged crime occurred. Mesereau implied the new defense team will not seek a change of venue or a jury from another county.
During Cosby’s first trial in June, a jury from Allegheny County was selected after Cosby’s previous defense team argued pretrial publicity prevented Cosby from obtaining a fair and impartial jury in Montgomery County.
Mesereau, Bliss and Silver replace lawyers Brian J. McMonagle and Angela Agrusa, who represented Cosby at the June trial. McMonagle and Agrusa exchanged pleasantries with Cosby and his new lawyers before they left the courtroom once O’Neill granted their requests to withdraw from the case.
O’Neill thanked McMonagle and Agrusa for their “extraordinary advocacy” and their “utmost respect for the process” during their tenure as Cosby’s legal team.
Mesereau, Bliss and Silver did not respond to reporters’ questions as they left the courthouse with Cosby and did not reveal if Cosby would testify at the retrial. Cosby did not testify during the first trial in June.
“Stay strong,” a spectator yelled to Cosby as he left the courthouse.
During an unusual moment before Cosby got into a waiting SUV, he posed for photos with each of his new lawyers as the media and spectators curiously looked on.
“We’re ready to proceed. As we told you before we are confident in our case and the evidence. We’ll be ready when we get a trial date from the judge,” county District Attorney Kevin R. Steele said after the hearing. “It’s a case that deserves a verdict and we intend to get there.”
Steele, accompanied by co-prosecutors Kristen Feden and M. Stewart Ryan, declined to comment further as a horde of reporters fired questions at him.
After hearing five days of testimony at the trial in June, a jury of seven men and five women selected in Allegheny County told a judge it was hopelessly deadlocked “on all counts” after deliberating more than 52 hours over six days.
O’Neill declared a mistrial and Steele immediately informed the judge he would retry Cosby. O’Neill ordered a retrial.
William Henry Cosby Jr., as his name appears on charging documents, faces three counts of aggravated indecent assault in connection with allegations he had inappropriate sexual contact with Andrea Constand, a former Temple University athletic department employee, at his Cheltenham home after plying her with blue pills and wine sometime between midJanuary and mid-February 2004. Cosby, 80, maintains his contact with Constand was consensual.
Cosby remains free on 10 percent of $1 million bail, pending the retrial. Cosby faces a possible maximum sentence of 15 to 30 years in prison if convicted of the charges.
According to the Mesereau Law Group’s web site, it “is dedicated to serving its very select clientele.” Mesereau is best known for representing the late Michael Jackson at a 2004 California trial at which Jackson was acquitted of all child molestation charges. Mesereau’s other celebrity clients have included actor Robert Blake and boxer Mike Tyson, according to Mesereau’s web site.
Silver, a partner with the Schnader Harrison Segal and Lewis firm in Philadelphia, previously represented U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah who was convicted of federal corruption charges in June 2016 and is serving a 10-year prison term. Silver, an adjunct faculty member of the University of Pennsylvania, also represented former Penn State President Graham Spanier at his child endangerment trial earlier this year.
Bliss, according to her biography, is a former federal prosecutor turned defense lawyer who has tried more than 50 federal criminal jury trials during her career.
Members of the new defense team gave no hints about any potential defense strategies on behalf of Cosby.
During Cosby’s June trial, McMonagle and Agrusa argued Cosby was the victim of false accusations and that the entertainer and Constand had a “romantic relationship” and consensual sexual contact during the 2004 incident. At one point during the trial, McMonagle stood beside Cosby and suggested to jurors that
while Cosby may have been an unfaithful husband, that didn’t make him a criminal.
Prosecutors argued Cosby was a trusted friend and mentor who took advantage of a woman in a “vulnerable state,” and sexually assaulted Constand at his Cheltenham mansion.
Constand, 44, of Ontario, Canada, testified over two days that after taking the blue pills she began slurring her words and became “frozen” or paralyzed and was unable to fight off Cosby’s sexual advances. Constand claimed Cosby placed her on a couch, touched her breasts, forced her to touch his penis and performed digital penetration all without her consent.
The 11-day trial came at a high cost for the county. When county officials completed their calculation of the Cosby trial expenses last month, they indicated the cost of the trial reached $219,100. The trial that began June 5 was the highestprofile case to ever play out in a county courtroom and attracted worldwide attention.