A judge on Thursday denied Bill Cosby’s bid to force his sex-assault accuser to testify before trial, ruling prosecutors worked within the law by using police statements as a stand-in for her at his preliminary hearing. Cosby wanted O’Neill to reconsider.
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Thursday’s hearing offered a preview of the defense trial strategy, which will likely focus on Constand and her credibility.
The comedian returned to court in Norristown, Pennsylvania today, where his lawyers will appeal the decision to send the case against him to trial.
Cosby expressed disappointment in a statement issued by his spokesman nearly immediately.
“Victims can only be victimized by a defense lawyer if there isn’t substantive impeachment material that can be used against them”, said Douglas Sughrue, a Pittsburgh lawyer who is chairman of the Allegheny County Bar Association’s criminal litigation section.
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. “We truly believe that our Supreme Court will right this wrong and reverse this decision so that we can finish the mission of proving Mr. Cosby’s innocence”. What’s more, he has accused Cosby’s legal team of using the hearing to try to discredit Constand.
Accusations of sexual assault from dozens of women have knocked Cosby off his longtime pedestal as one of the most beloved US entertainers. “When they want to confront the witness, they can confront her at trial”.
Cosby sat at the defense table taking in the arguments with his finger to his lips much of the time. Constand was not in the courtroom.
“The commonwealth does not have to put witnesses on the stand”, O’Neill said in court. McHugh held that the standard of evidence at a preliminary hearing allowed prosecutors to present the basics of their case without Constand testifying or facing cross-examination. He paid her an undisclosed amount to settle a civil suit. Authorities reopened the case a year ago after learning he had acknowledged in a deposition that he had given Constand pills and then engaged in sex acts with her. The criminal case was reopened as new evidence came to light, including a number of other accusers coming forward and the release of some of Cosby’s remarks during a 2005 deposition that were recently unsealed.
Steele, the newly elected district attorney, turned the Cosby case into an election issue.
Cosby’s lawyer, Brian McMonagle, has argued that Constand should have been forced to show up at the May hearing to explain why she waited a year to make her complaint, why she could not recall certain details and why she stayed in touch with Cosby even after the alleged attack. He said he sometimes took the same allergy medicine to help him fall asleep.
Constand told police the drugs left her semi-conscious and unable to move.
Cosby has repeatedly denied Constand’s allegations. She consumed both voluntarily.
“But there’s a contradiction there, Tayback said, paraphrasing her statement this way: “‘I can’t talk, ‘ and, yet, she’s saying it”.
“She is not in a state that she is able to consent to any of this”, Steele said. “Hearsay evidence shall be sufficient.This case shall proceed to trial”.
“There can be self-blame for the rape”, she said.
The 78-year-old Cosby is accused of drugging and molesting Constand in 2004. In a transcript of Constand’s January 2005 interview with police, Constand claimed that Cosby invited her to his home for a conversation about her future.
Cosby has struck back with countersuits.
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Constand filed a lawsuit against Cosby and the two sides reached a civil settlement in 2006. He argued at a hearing last week that she and her lawyers violated the terms of the settlement by cooperating in the investigation of her accusations reopened by police in 2015.
