On Monday, the Pennsylvania Superior Court rejected Bill Cosby’s request to throw out his criminal case, paving the way for his trial for the alleged sexual assault of Andrea Constand. The entertainer unsuccessfully called a 2004 deal not to prosecute him.
Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele is now pressing for a preliminary hearing date, as reported by the Los Angeles Times. The 78-year-old man is facing charges on a 2004 encounter with Constand, who was a Temple University employee at the time and says the comedian drugged and sexually assaulted her at his Elkins Park, Pennsylvania mansion in January 2004. Cosby claims she agreed to have sex with him.
Former district attorney Bruce L. Castor promised he would never prosecute Cosby. Last February 4, Montgomery County Judge Steven O’Neil ruled the case could go forward and Cosby’s attorneys argued authorities should honor Castor’s decade-old agreement. The former district attorney testified about the deal but O’Neil determined he was “not credible” and rejected the comedian’s request to dismiss the case.
In 2005, Castor urged Cosby to testify in Constand’s 2005 civil lawsuit. In the testimony, which was released last year and led a new prosecutor to put him under arrest, the long-married entertainer admitted several affairs and said he had obtained Quaaludes so he can give them to women he wanted to seduce.
Castor acted as a key defense witness last fall, saying he had made a deal that the comedian would never be charged. The former prosecutor last year tried to return to the district attorney’s office but Steele defeated him.
A spokesman said Cosby’s lawyers were discussing whether to publicly react to Monday’s decision, according to the report by the Los Angeles Times. David Rudovsky, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania, said the comedian could appeal once again to the state Supreme Court, but he doubted that Cosby would be given a stay during the review.
Cosby countersued Constand
Constand filled a lawsuit against Cosby after Castor turned down the case. Given that her lawsuit’s settlement was supposed to be confidential, Cosby countersued her. He accused her of breach of contract for contacting police who reopened the case last year. His lawsuit states that he gave the woman the cold and allergy medicine Benadryl before engaging in sex acts, and remarks that the encounter was consensual.
The Pennsylvania accuser returned home to Toronto after leaving her job with the Temple women’s basketball team in the spring of 2005. A year later, she told police she had been sexually assaulted by the comedian. She settled her lawsuit in 2006 and thirteen other women began claiming that Cosby had also assaulted them, but Constand’s is the only case to result in criminal charges against the entertainer.
Source: Los Angeles Times