Former district attorney: Decision protects Cosby
NORRISTOWN, Pa. — The former district attorney who declined to arrest Bill Cosby on sex crime charges a decade ago testified Tuesday that he believes his decision shields the comedian from ever being prosecuted in the case.
Former Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce Castor took the stand in a bidbyCosby’s lawyers to get the case against the TV star thrown out long before trial because of what they say is a nonprosecution agreement with Castor.
The current district attorney insists there is no record of any such promise.
Castor said the only place the matter was put in writing was in a 2005 news release announcing his decision not to prosecute.
He acknowledged that he didn’t draw up a formal immunity agreement filed with a judge because, he said, Cosby was afraid that would make him look bad. Also, Castor said, “It was unnecessary because I concluded therewas noway the case would get any better.” And he said Cosby’s lawyers did not insist on such a document.
The proceedings will resume Wednesday, when Common Pleas Judge Steven O’Neill said he hopes to rule on whether to throw out the case.
Cosby, 78, was arrested and charged in December with drugging and assaulting former Temple University athletic department employee Andrea Constand at his suburban Philadelphia mansion in 2004. He could get up to 10 years in prison if convicted.
Castor said Tuesday that he believed Constand’s story but that proving it would have been problematic because of serious flaws in the case, including what he called her inconsistencies and continued contact with Cosby. In deciding not to bring charges, he said, he meantto protectCosby from prosecution “for all time.”
Castor said he hoped — correctly, it turned out— his ruling would prod Cosby to testify in a lawsuit brought against him by Constand and help Constand win damages. She eventually settled for an undisclosed amount.
“I was hopeful that I had made Ms. Constand a millionaire,” the former DA said.
He said he and Cosby’s then-attorney, Walter Phillips, did not have an actual agreement that Cosby would testify in exchange for not being prosecuted. Phillips has since died.
Kevin Steele, the newly elected district attorneywho is pursuing the case, has said Cosbywouldneedanimmunity agreement in writing to get the case thrown out. He has said he has no evidence one exists.
In related news, a Los Angeles judge ordered Cosby to attend another deposition in a lawsuit filed by a woman who says the comic forced her to perform a sex act on him at the Playboy Mansion around 1974, when shewas 15.
Also Tuesday, model Chloe Goins dropped a lawsuit accusing Cosby of drugging and sexually assaulting her at the Playboy Mansion in 2008. Goins gave no explanation.