Montreal Gazette

COSBY PROTECTED FROM CHARGES, FORMER DA SAYS

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The former district attorney who declined a decade ago to bring sex-crime charges against Bill Cosby testified Tuesday that he believes his decision is binding on his successors and forever closes the door on prosecutin­g the comedian.

Former Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce Castor took the stand as part of a bid by Cosby’s lawyers to get the case thrown out because of what they say is a decade-old non-prosecutio­n agreement from Castor.

The current district attorney has said there is no record of any such agreement.

Cosby, 78, was arrested and charged in December with drugging and violating former Temple University athletic department employee Andrea Constand, a Torontonia­n who is now a massage therapist, at his suburban Philadelph­ia mansion in 2004.

Castor said Tuesday that he found serious flaws in the case in 2005 and declined to bring charges. He said that he made the decision as a representa­tive of the state — as “the sovereign,” as he put it, over and over — and that it would last in perpetuity.

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