Trial judge Steven T O’Neill denied Cosby’s effort to compel Andrea Constand to attend a preliminary hearing where the comedian’s lawyers would have cross-examined her.
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Constand, a former basketball star who worked at Cosby’s alma mater, Temple University, claims that he drugged and molested her at his nearby Pennsylvania home in 2004.
“We are confident that our state’s highest court will right this wrong, will reverse this decision and allow us to begin our journey to making sure that Mr Cosby is proven innocent”, he said.
As 1010 WINS’ Steve Kastenbaum reported, Cosby didn’t have anything to say on the judge’s ruling that the trial should proceed.
In a statement issued by Cosby’s defense team immediately after the conclusion of the 3½-hour hearing, the lawyers vowed to ask the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to hear their appeal of O’Neill’s rulings. However, the state Supreme Court has agreed to review the decision, leading Cosby’s lawyers to challenge it.
“The commonwealth does not have to put witnesses on the stand”, O’Neill said in court.
That hearing saw Cosby ordered to stand trial. Over 50 other women have accused Cosby of similar charges and have filed lawsuits. District Attorney Kevin Steele countered that argument by reading explicit passages from a deposition that Cosby gave in a civil suit filed against him by Constand.
Although sexual assault accusations against Cosby span from 1965 to 2008 across 10 USA states and even one Canadian province, these accusations only really reached public awareness after a 2014 performance by comedian Hannibal Buress referencing the allegations went viral.
Cosby entered the courtroom in a tan jacket and brown trousers, leaning on the arm of a public relations agent and flanked by a burly bodyguard. “Today a man who has meant so much to so many; a man who has given so much to so many; has had his constitutional rights trampled on”.
The ruling streamlines the process by which Cosby’s case will reach a trial and limits the opportunity for the defense to garner information from – or exert influence over – a key prosecution witness before the trial.
The comedian’s lawyers said a lower court found probable cause this spring based exclusively on decade-old police statements, and they complained defense lawyers had no way to challenge the allegations.
Departing the Montgomery County Courthouse after a preliminary hearing, in Norristown, Pa. Cosby has maintained it was consensual and that the only thing he gave her was Benadryl.
The Constand case resurfaced a year ago after dozens of other women came forward with claims of sexual misconduct against Cosby, who has denied he committed any crimes.
Free on 10 percent of $1 million cash bail, the worldwide celebrity could be sentenced to a maximum of 15 to 30 years if convicted on all three charges.
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Constand did not come forward with the allegations until a year later when she reported the incident to Canadian police, who subsequently contacted Cheltenham police and Montgomery County detectives.
