D.A.: Bill Cosby appellate claims ‘meritless’
NORRISTOWN >> Bill Cosby raises “a proverbial everything-but-the-kitchensink of arguments” for a new trial or reduced sentence and those claims are meritless, Montgomery County prosecutors argued in court papers urging a judge to deny the actor’s first appeal of his sexual assault conviction.
“This is a timeworn case and defendant has had his many days, months and years in this court. It is time to move on; it is time for the appellate courts to bring this case one step closer to finality,” District Attorney Kevin R. Steele and Deputy District Attorney Robert M. Falin wrote in court documents filed on Friday.
Steele and Falin maintained Cosby’s appellate claims are “meritless” and that a hearing on Cosby’s request for a new trial or modified sentence is not necessary.
“Defendant has raised a proverbial everything but-the-kitchen-sink of arguments in the hopes that this court will give him a better sentence. His claims are meritless …,” Steele and Falin argued.
On Sept. 25, Judge Ste--
ven T. O’Neill sentenced Cosby to a 3-to-10-year prison term on charges he sexually assaulted Andrea Constand, a former Temple University athletic department employee, after drugging her with “three blue pills” at his Cheltenham mansion in January 2004. A jury convicted Cosby of the charges in April.
In court papers filed earlier this month, defense lawyers argued O’Neill abused his discretion by giving undue weight to “retribution” over “rehabilitation, deterrence and incapacitation” when he sentenced an “81-year-old, blind defendant who had not even been accused of any criminal conduct occurring within the past 10 or more years.”
Defense lawyers asked O’Neill to vacate Cosby’s sentence and to reduce the prison term in the mitigated range of state sentencing guidelines.
But Steele and Falin argued the judge considered and weighed Cosby’s age and blindness “and reasonably concluded that defendant’s need for correctional treatment weighed in favor of confinement, despite mitigating evidence.” Steele and Falin argued Cosby “articulates nothing that would compel modification of his sentence.”
Defense lawyers also sought a new trial for Cosby, arguing the verdict was “against the weight of the evidence,” specifically challenging that the crime occurred, “if at all,” within the 12-year statute of limitations, that is, in January 2004 rather than in late 2003 or earlier.
Business records, defense lawyer claimed, demonstrated Cosby was not present in the place alleged during the time that Constand asserted the offense occurred.
Steele and Falin responded that Cosby “ignores, however, his own admission under oath” at a civil deposition that the incident occurred in 2004, within the statute of limitations, and that the victim confirmed that fact.
“At best for defendant, the records he relied on at trial were ambiguous; at worst, they corroborated the evidence relied on by the commonwealth to establish that the offense occurred within the limitations period,” Steele and Falin wrote.
Cosby’s initial appeal was filed by defense lawyers Joseph P. Green Jr. and Peter Goldberger, who represented Cosby at the sentencing hearing. However, Cosby recently retained new lawyers, Brian W. Perry and Kristen L. Welsenberger, according to court documents.
O’Neill has not revealed if he will hold a hearing on Cosby’s requests. If the judge denies Cosby’s requests, then the defense would have to take their fight to the Pennsylvania Superior Court.
Cosby currently is being housed at the State Correctional Institution at Phoenix in Skippack Township.
During the April trial, prosecutors described Cosby as a trusted mentor who betrayed the friendship he had with Constand and said the criminal case was “about trust … about betrayal.” Prosecutors argued Constand did not have the ability to consent to sexual contact.
Constand, 45, of Ontario, Canada, testifying 7 ½ hours over two days, said after taking the blue pills she began slurring her words and was unable to fight off Cosby’s sexual advances. The former director of women’s basketball operations at Temple University claimed Cosby guided her to a couch, where she passed out.
Constand testified she was “jolted” awake to find Cosby touching her breasts, digitally penetrating her and forcing her to touch his penis, all without her consent.
Cosby, who did not testify during his first trial that ended in a mistrial in 2017 or at the April retrial, maintained that the contact he had with Constand was consensual.