Bill Cosby in a December 30, 2015 booking photo released by the Cheltenham Township, PA Police Department.(MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Penn.) – Former Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, District Attorney Bruce Castor explained to a judge Tuesday why he did not press criminal charges against Bill Cosby a decade ago.
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In court filings, prosecutors say Risa Ferman, district attorney when charges were filed, and Bruce Castor’s first assistant had never heard of any agreement until last fall during Castor’s failed campaign to return to the DA’s office.
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.
“It’s not reasonable to not have this in writing”, District Attorney Kevin Steele told Common Please Judge Steven O’Neill.
Castor has contended Constand’s lawyers wanted the agreement so Cosby would be free to testify in her lawsuit.
He essentially conceded that the only reason Cosby testified in Constand’s subsequent 2005 civil suit – the testimony that new prosecutors are now using to charge him – was because he took any potential prosecution off the table. He said that meant Cosby had to testify in the civil case Constand later brought against him, and could not claim his Fifth Amendment right.
Cosby, 78, has spent much of the proceeding sitting quietly next to his lawyers. At the same time, she said, “if they can win without this ever going to trial, then they’ve done their client a big service”. He also admitted he reached into Constand’s trousers but said it was consensual.
Attorney says comedian was granted “unwritten immunity” in case of Andrea Constand…
The judge set a March 8 preliminary hearing for prosecutors to begin to discuss their evidence against Cosby.
The former D.A.is scheduled to testify on behalf of Cosby… saying he indeed made the promise not to prosecute.
O’Neill questioned Castor why he didn’t put the non-prosecution decision in writing, for example in the form of an immunity agreement. Huth claimed she was 15 in 1974 when the comic allegedly sexually assaulted her at the mansion. “A secret agreement that permits a wealthy defendant to buy his way out of a criminal case isn’t right”.
Castor said there was “insufficient, credible and admissible evidence” in 2005 to show Cosby had committed a crime without a reasonable doubt. While Ferman’s name was mentioned several times it’s unclear if Ferman, who is now a county judge, will be called to testify at the hearing when it resumes Wednesday.
While more than 50 women have accused Cosby of drugging and sexually assaulting them since the 1960s, the statute of limitations for prosecuting the comic has run out in almost every instance.
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In addition, Schmitt said, Cosby’s lead attorney in the Constand case – Walter Phillips – “got assurances from Mr. Castor that this was an irrevocable decision that he had made”. This is the only case in which he has been charged.
