Lawyer Jack Schmitt testified that Cosby’s legal team considered the criminal case “irrevocably concluded” after a suburban Philadelphia district attorney told them he was closing the investigation into charges Cosby drugged and violated Andrea Constand. Steele has said there is no record of any such agreement.
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“I had to read her (Constand) this, and it was a very harsh statement”. Castor found himself sparring with prosecutors over many seemingly inconsistent statements he made over the years on whether Cosby could still be charged. Huth alleges that Cosby gave her alcohol and then molested her in a bedroom suite, according to a December 2014 court filing.
The 78-year-old comedian is accused of drugging and assaulting a former employee of his alma mater university in 2004.
She backed the prosecution’s assertion that the press release was not an agreement, and she never heard about charges being precluded until the case came back into the limelight in 2005.
Risa Ferman, now a county judge, worked on the Constand case before succeeding Castor as district attorney in 2008. “In this case, the prosecution should be stopped in its tracks”, Cosby lawyer Chris Tayback argued.
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 she was 15.
The next step is a preliminary hearing on March 8 to decide whether prosecutors have enough evidence to put him on trial. Castor has said there was an oral non-prosecution agreement worked out with Cosby’s former attorney Walter Phillips Jr., who died a year ago.
A Pennsylvania district attorney says his predecessor had no authority to make an agreement with Bill Cosby’s lawyers that the comedian would never face criminal charges in a decade-old sexual assault case.
Mr Castor testified he had agreed not to prosecute Cosby in 2005 to clear the way for him to testify in a civil suit brought by alleged victim Andrea Constand, now 44, who has said Cosby plied her with alcohol and drugs before raping her.
He did add that, although his testimony could only help Cosby’s case, he’s hoping for the prosecution to win. Steele has only been D.A. for a few months; he ran against Castor, invoking Castor’s failure to prosecute Cosby as part of his platform.
A Pennsylvania judge has ruled that comedian Bill Cosby can stand trial on a criminal sexual assault charge, throwing out an attempt by his lawyers to dismiss the case.
Troiani said Castor likely didn’t want to “alienate fans of Dr. Huxtable”, Cosby’s character in The Cosby Show.
Cosby answered questions for four days, and settled out of court with Constand in 2006.
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In addition to the deposition released from the Constand civil suit a year ago, the charge also came after a barrage of women accused Cosby of sexual misconduct, dating back to the 1960s.
