BILL GETS OUT
SEX ASSAULT RAP THROWN OUT AND HE WON’T FACE NEW TRIAL COURT: ‘PROMISE’ BY PROSECUTOR MEANS CASE WAS BARRED...
BILL Cosby was freed from prison yesterday after a court overturned his sexual assault conviction — saying he never should have faced charges after striking a secret deal with prosecutors more than 15 years ago.
The spl it decision by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court came after Cosby had served more than two years of a potential three to 10-year sentence in a state prison following his 2018 conviction.
Cosby (83) was released yesterday afternoon, the state corrections department said on Twitter.
The comedian and actor was best known for his role as the lovable husband and father in the 1980s television comedy series The Cosby Show, earning him the nickname “America’s Dad”.
But his family-friendly reputation was shattered after dozens of women accused him of sexual assault over a period of decades.
Watershed
His conviction was widely seen as a watershed moment in the #MeToo movement that brought forth an array of allegations against powerful men in Hollywood and beyond.
Cosby was found guilty of sexually assaulting Andrea Constand — an employee at his alma mater Temple University — in his home in 2004 after drugging her with unidentified pills.
Constand’s allegations were the only ones against Cosby that were not too old to allow for criminal charges.
Reaction was swift on social media, with many women involved in the #MeToo movement expressing horror at the decision.
“THIS is why women do not come forward,” writer E Je an Carroll, who has acc used f ormer US President Donald Trump of raping her decades ago, wrote on Twitter. Trump has denied her claim.
But Phylicia Rashad, Cosby’s costar on The Cosby Show, celebrated the ruling for correcting “a miscarriage of justice.”
The court’s majority found that a state prosecutor, Bruce Castor, had struck a deal with Cosby’s attorneys in 2005 not to bring criminal charges.
As a result, Cosby was unable to avoid testifying as part of a civil lawsuit that Constand brought against him, since defendants can only refuse to testify when faced with criminal prosecution.
Sedatives
In a sworn deposition, Cosby acknowledged giving women sedatives to facilitate sexual encounters, though he maintained they were consensual.
His admissions, which a jud ge later unsealed in 2015, helped form the basis for criminal charges later that year, when a newly elected district attorney, Kevin Steele, charged Cosby just days before the statute of limitations was set to expire.
The prosecution, the court found, essentially amounted to reneging on Castor’s earlier promise not to charge Cosby.
“In light of these circumstances, the subsequent decision by successor D. A. s (district attorneys) to prosecute Cosby violated Cosby’s due process rights,” Justice David Wecht wrote for a four- judge majority.
“There is only one remedy that can completely restore Cosby to the status quo ante. He must be discharged, and any future prosecution on these particular charges must be barred.”
One dissenting justice said Cosby should stay in prison, while two others said it was wrong to bar prosecutors from retrying him, though without relying on the tainted evidence.
“So drastic a step merely increases to an intolerable degree interference with the public interest in having the guilty brought to book,” Associate Justice Kevin Dougherty wrote. Am id-level appeals court had said the deposition testimony was admissible t o illustrate Co sby’s s “unique sexual assault t playbook” f or drugging a nd assaulting women.
Wecht, however, said Cosby was forced to give that testimony only after Castor said he would not be prosecuted for it, and a retrial even without that testimony could not restore the rights Cosby gave up by having to testify against himself.
Defence
Castor made national a headlines in February F as a member of Trump’s legal defence team during his impeachment trial in the US Senate.
The former prosecutor delivered a rambling opening statement that drew sharp criticism from several senators, including Republ ican supporters of Trump.
Cosby’s first trial ended with a hung jury in 2017, when jurors could not reach a unanimous decision on his culpability.
But he was found guilty at a second trial, after the judge a llowed prosecutors to call fiveprior accusers — four more than in the first trial.
Armed with those witnesses, prosecutors argued that Cosby’s assault of Constand was a well-rehearsed offense he had honed over decades: he befriended younger women, acting as a mentor, only to sexually assault them, often with the help of drugs.