Saddled with an impossible criminal case, former Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce Castor says he opted not to prosecute Bill Cosby on sexual assault charges in 2005 because he wanted to increase the accuser’s chance to succeed in her civil lawsuit against the iconic comedian.
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As his direct examination wound down Tuesday afternoon, Castor sought to make clear he was not a witness for the defense.
Castor also testified he hopes Cosby fails in his efforts to get the case thrown out.
But prosecutors have said in court filings that no documentation exists to corroborate any such agreement.
Feb 3, 2016- A former prosecutor in the USA state of Pennsylvania has said his decision not to charge actor Bill Cosby with sex crimes in 2005 is “binding”.
Castor said Constand’s delay in going to authorities was of “enormous significance” in his consideration of the case.
“Making Mr. Cosby pay money to Ms. Constand was the best I would be able to set the stage for because a prosecution was not viable and never would be”, Castor said during a hearing in a suburban Philadelphia court.
Constand’s lawyers have also denied they were told about any non-prosecution agreement.
The former model who accused Bill Cosby of drugging and sexually assaulting her at the Playboy Mansion has dropped her civil suit against the embattled comedian. He said the statements from other alleged victims were “very old” and noted that these individuals “had never gone to police”.
Cosby and his legal team are trying to dismiss the charge of aggravated indecent assault that First Assistant District Attorney Kevin Steele charged him with last December.
According to the affidavit of probable cause, Constand alleges Cosby drugged and sexually assaulted her in his Pennsylvania home in 2004, after inviting her there to discuss her professional future.
She waited a year to report being drugged and digitally penetrated by Cosby in his Cheltenham Township mansion in 2004, gave inconsistent versions of events to law enforcement, and had multiple contacts with Cosby after the assault, he said. And he said Cosby’s lawyers did not insist on such a document.
That deposition was sealed for the last decade but parts were unsealed last summer by a federal judge.
Q. “When you got the Quaaludes, was it in your mind that you were going to use these Quaaludes for young women that you wanted to have sex with?”
Cosby later stated in the deposition he was only referring to one unnamed woman.
After Castor declined to prosecute Cosby, Constand sued him in civil court, and Cosby testified for three days in a deposition.
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.
Castor said there was “no prompt complaint”, and there was a delay of about a year.
Those behaviors often occur in sexual assault cases in which the two people involved, such as Cosby and Constand, know and trust one another, she said.
“The matter was resolved and I am hopeful that I had made Ms Constand a millionaire”, the former prosecutor added. “… In this instance I did not think there was any possibility the case would ever get better”.
The defense says Cosby had a deal with former Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce Castor that he wouldn’t be charged and should therefore testify in his accuser’s 2005 lawsuit.
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But the version of events Castor offered Tuesday conflicts with an earlier description he outlined in an email written to his successor a year ago.
