State board: Cosby a ‘sexually violent predator’
Philadelphia Inquirer
A Pennsylvania board has recommended that entertainer Bill Cosby be declared a “sexually violent predator” — a classification that would require him to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life and undergo treatment.
Under Pennsylvania law, a sexually violent predator is a person who has “a mental abnormality or personality disorder that makes the person likely to engage in predatory sexually violent offenses.”
In a request filed in court Tuesday, Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin R. Steele cited the recommendation of the state sexual offender assessment board and asked county Judge Steven T. O’Neill to schedule a hearing to determine whether Mr. Cosby will get the designation.
A Montgomery County jury found Mr. Cosby guilty in April of sexually assaulting Andrea Constand, after a weekslong trial that included testimony from five other women who also have accused him of sexual misconduct. The 81-year-old entertainer is scheduled to be sentenced in September.
Details about the board’s findings on Mr. Cosby have not been made public. In Pennsylvania, the assessment board issues a recommendation on whether someone should be designated a sexually violent predator, and a judge can accept or reject that recommendation. A judge holds a hearing — typically separate from a sentencing hearing — at which prosecutors and the convicted person can present evidence.
Mr. Cosby would be permitted under state law to have his own expert perform an assessment and testify about whether he should be designated a sexually violent predator.
If Mr. Cosby is designated as such, he will be required to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life and participate in counseling or treatment at least once a month.
“We will see them in court,” Andrew Wyatt, Mr. Cosby’s publicist, said Tuesday in response to Mr. Steele’s request.
Mr. Cosby has been on house arrest at his home in Cheltenham since April when he was found guilty of three counts of aggravated indecent assault. Mr. Wyatt said Tuesday that Mr. Cosby isdoing “great.”