Chesco lawyer to represent Cosby at sentencing

NORRISTOWN » Entertainer Bill Cosby has hired a Chester County lawyer to represent him at his September sentencing hearing on charges he drugged and sexually assaulted a woman at his Cheltenham mansion in 2004.

Joseph P. Green Jr., a wellknown West Chester-based criminal defense lawyer, will replace the California and Nevada lawyers, who represented Cosby at his April trial, when Cosby is sentenced in Montgomery County Court on Sept. 24. Andrew Wyatt, a spokesman for Cosby, made the announcement about Green being retained by Cosby.

“I am looking forward to representing Mr. Cosby in post verdict proceedings and at sentencing,” Green said in a prepared statement. “There are complicated legislative and constitutional issues unique to Pennsylvania law that have to be addressed prior to sentencing.”

Green did not comment further about those potential sentencing “issues” or Cosby’s decision to retain him for the sentencing hearing.

Green replaces lawyers Thomas Mesereau Jr. and Becky James, of Los Angeles, Kathleen Bliss, of Las Vegas, and Lane Vines, of Philadelphia, who represented Cosby during his April trial.

On April 26, a jury convicted Cosby, who turns 81 next month, of three felony counts of aggravated indecent assault in connection with sexually assaulting Andrea Constand, a former Temple University athletic department employee, after plying her with “three blue pills,” at his Cheltenham mansion in January 2004. The jury deliberated 14 hours over two days before reaching the verdict.

With the verdict, the jury found that Cosby sexually assaulted Constand while she was unconscious and without her consent.

It was the second trial for Cosby. Cosby’s first trial in June 2017 ended in a mistrial when a jury selected from Allegheny County couldn’t reach a verdict.

Cosby faces a possible maximum sentence of 15 to 30 years in state prison on the charges. However, state sentencing guidelines would allow for a lesser sentence.

Judge Steven T. O’Neill has allowed Cosby to remain free on bail, 10 percent of $1 million, to await sentencing. The judge said the entertainer must wear an electronic monitoring device while he remains free. Cosby cannot leave the state without approval of the judge.

Cosby’s sentencing hearing is expected to be the most-watched sentencing hearing ever in a county courtroom. The sentencing hearing is expected to attract worldwide media attention.

During the 14-day retrial, District Attorney Kevin R. Steele was permitted to call five additional women, who accused Cosby of sexual misconduct between the years 1982 and 1996, to testify. During Cosby’s first trial last June, O’Neill permitted only one other accuser to testify.

During the retrial, Steele and co-prosecutors Kristen Feden and M. Stewart Ryan 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 alleged Cosby plied Constand with “three blue pills” and proceeded to sexually assault her while she visited his home to discuss her career.

Prosecutors argued Constand did not have the ability to consent to sexual contact.

Constand, 45, of Ontario, Canada, testifying 7½ 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.

Constand didn’t report the incident to police until January 2005, about a year after it occurred. Constand was 30 and Cosby was in his 60s at the time of the assault.

Cosby, who did not testify during his first trial or at the retrial, maintained the contact he had with Constand was consensual.

During the retrial, Mesereau, who successfully represented singer Michael Jackson on molestation charges in 2004, portrayed Constand as greedy and “a pathological liar” who had a financial motive to lie about a sexual assault.

For the first time publicly, it was revealed during the retrial that Cosby entered into a $3,380,000 civil settlement with Constand in October 2006. Judge O’Neill ruled that evidence of the civil settlement between Cosby and Constand was admissible evidence at the criminal trial.

The trial represented the first time Cosby, who played Dr. Cliff Huxtable on “The Cosby Show” from 1984 to 1992, had been charged with a crime despite allegations from dozens of women who claimed they were assaulted by the entertainer.

The charges were lodged against Cosby on Dec. 30, 2015, before the 12-year statute of limitations to file charges expired.