BILL COSBY SAGA TAKES A MONUMENTAL TURN
‘The beginning of the beginning of the end,’ expert says
Bill Cosby’s arraignment on a criminal charge of aggravated indecent assault Wednesday represents a seismic shift in the scandal involving the comedian, experts say.
“In the past there was deniability, and his attorneys could say he has never been charged criminally,” says veteran publicist Howard Bragman, founder of Fifteen Minutes Public Relations. “All of a sudden the stakes have changed, and he could end up in jail” at age 78.
It’s the first time, after 14 months of mounting scandal, that Cosby has been charged in a criminal court in a case involving one of the nearly 60 women who say Cosby drugged or sexually assaulted them or both in episodes dating back to the mid-1960s.
Cosby pleaded not guilty in court in Elkins Park, Pa., posted $1 million bail (paying 10% as called for in state law) and turned over his passport as a condition for being released.
“It’s the beginning of the beginning of the end,” says Jerry Reisman, a partner at the Long Island firm of Reisman, Peirez, Reisman and Capobianco, “because it is the first criminal action against him, and it’s a very serious charge. The question is whether this case will stick.”
Neither Cosby nor prosecutors will have an easy time at trial, Reisman says, if for nothing else but the lapse of time and the lapse of memories over what will be a dozen years by the time the case is heard by a jury.
When former Temple University employee Andrea Constand first accused Cosby in 2005 of drugging and assaulting her at his home in Montgomery County, Pa., in 2004, the prosecutor declined to bring charges for lack of evidence.
But now, with a 12-year statute of limitations looming at the end of January, Constand’s case has been reopened. (She said she was grateful to the Pennsylvania pros- ecutors and police for bringing the case but otherwise declined further comment.)
It is possible that documents and depositions from the civil suit Constand and Cosby settled in 2006 could be used in the criminal case, including a damaging deposition in which Cosby acknowledged a pattern of obtaining drugs to give to women he sought for sex.
“It’s going to be Cosby’s word against hers at trial,” Reisman says. The other accusations against Cosby “are not technically relevant in this criminal case; however, it’s going to be very hard to find a juror unaware of them.”
Can Cosby get a fair trial given that it might be difficult to find impartial jurors?
“I would seriously question any juror who has not heard about the allegations against Cosby,” says defense attorney Stuart Slotnick, who specializes in white-collar-crime cases. “Only those who have not lived on this planet will be ignorant of the charges. Getting a fair and impartial jury will be difficult, but it can be done.”
It’s also possible Deputy Dis- trict Attorney Kevin Steele will take the Cosby case to a grand jury for an indictment to help bolster his case. But a grand jury also could dismiss the case, Reisman said.
The lawyers who represent some of Cosby’s accusers praised the criminal charge and arrest, starting with his most vociferous legal foe, Gloria Allred, the crusading women’s rights lawyer who represents 29 accusers, and her daughter, Lisa Bloom, who represents ex-model and Cosby accuser Janice Dickinson.
“I am very happy that this day has finally come,” Allred said at a news conference in her Los Angeles office. “Mr. Cosby deserves a fair trial, but so does Andrea Constand and the people of the state of Pennsylvania.”
But no matter what happens in criminal court, Bragman says, Cosby is in for more pain and humiliation.
“He’s already convicted in the court of public opinion. It’s Bill Cosby’s House of Pain, and it’s a very tragic ending to what was once a great American story.”
Cosby “has no reputation anymore,” Reisman says.