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. In Pennsylvania, the law does not require an alleged victim to testify at a preliminary hearing. Cosby is accused of sexually assaulting Constand at his Cheltenham Township home in 2004. Cosby’s team argues that the police statements are hearsay, and that the ruling therefore wasn’t fair because Constand herself didn’t testify.
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When everything hit the fan, and the man we all knew and loved as Dr. Heathcliff “Cliff” Huxtable from the hit sitcom The Cosby Show was accused-not once, not twice, but more times than anyone could count on their hands-of sexual assault by a myriad of different women; things got real.
The 78-year-old comedian is charged with felony sexual assault for allegedly drugging and molesting a female friend in 2004. Authorities reopened the case previous year after learning he had acknowledged in a deposition that he had given Constand pills and then engaged in sex acts with her. Outside of the courtroom was a media frenzy with television news vans and photographers camped outside in sweltering heat, waiting for a glimpse of Cosby.
“Today someone who has given so much to so many had his constitutional rights trampled once again”, said Brian McMonagle, a lawyer for Cosby, after O’Neill’s ruling.
Immediately, Cosby’s attorneys fought before O’Neill to dismiss the case on the basis that a former prosecutor vowed not to bring charges if Cosby testified in Constand’s civil case.
At issue is a hearsay rule that prosecutors say allows them to establish that a case can be taken to trial without calling the alleged victim to the witness stand. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court is considering whether that rule is proper, but it has yet to decide.
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.
Constand late filed a federal civil lawsuit against Cosby that was settled out of court, with a federal judge sealing the settlement as well as Cosby’s transcript in the case.
For prosecutor Kevin Steele, Cosby’s defense attorneys will have their chance to question Constand at trial. “They do not”, Steele said.
Cosby called their encounter consensual and describes the blue pills he gave her as Benadryl.
Prosecutors say the right of defendants like Bill Cosby to confront their accusers in court doesn’t apply at Pennsylvania preliminary hearings.
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Bill Cosby has arrived at a Pennsylvania courthouse where he’ll ask a judge to either throw out his criminal sex assault case or force his accuser to testify before trial. Cosby, whose eyesight is failing after a years-long battle with glaucoma, has appeared detached at some hearings related to his case.
