Bill Cosby sexual assault conviction vacated by Pennsylvania Supreme Court
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The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has vacated the sentence of comedian and actor Bill Cosby on Wednesday.
The court's ruling will allow the 83-year-old to leave prison a free man. The court found that he had an agreement with a previous prosecutor that prevented him from being charged in the case. He has been in prison for two years after being sentenced to serve between three and 10 years in a state prison near Philadelphia.
"Cosby’s convictions and judgment of sentence are vacated and he is discharged," the ruling reads.
He had been accused of and tried for sexually assaulting Andrea Constand, who claimed the encounter took place in 2004.
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The actor, who had been known as "America's Dad", was charged in late 2015 for sexual assault after a prosecutor, who had newly unsealed evidence, arrested him only days before the statute of limitations was set to expire.
The new testimony, which came from five other accusers and dated back to experiences with him in the 1980s, was allowed during his retrial, which the state Supreme Court ruled tainted the trial.
After Constand made the initial accusation, the then-Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce Castor believed that it would be too difficult to convict him and instead allowed her to sue him in a civil action because he could be forced to testify, under penalty of perjury, without the benefit of being allowed to invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
He provided four sworn depositions in which he "made several incriminating statements," but did so after Castor had said he would not be prosecuted criminally. His successor in the district attorney's office "did not feel bound by his decision, and decided to prosecute Cosby notwithstanding that prior undertaking," and used the sworn inculpatory evidence at the criminal trial.
The court ruled that the "only remedy that comports with society's reasonable expectations of its elected prosecutors and our criminal justice system" is to vacate the sentence given the prior deal between Castor and Cosby. The ruling also said, "Under these circumstances, neither our principles of justice, nor society’s expectations, nor our sense of fair play and decency, can tolerate anything short of compelling the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office to stand by the decision of its former elected head."
In September, 2015, when Castor found out that then-District Attorney Rita Ferman had decided to reopen the case, he sent her a letter noting that he essentially made a "promise not to prosecute" Cosby in order to get him to testify, according the ruling.
He said to her, "I can see no possibility that Cosby's deposition could be used in a state criminal case, because I would have to testify as to what happened, and the deposition would be subject to suppression."
Cosby and Constand ultimately settled the civil suit for $3.38 million.
The prosecutors did not immediately state whether they plan to pursue an appeal or look to try him for a third time.
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Cosby was one of the first powerful men to be accused, tried, and convicted in the #MeToo era.
A spokesperson for Ferman, who is now a judge in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Phylicia Rashad, who played Claire Huxtable, Cosby's wife in The Cosby Show, celebrated the ruling on social media, saying, "FINALLY!!!! A terrible wrong is being righted- a miscarriage of justice is corrected!"
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Tags: News, Bill Cosby, Pennsylvania, Supreme Court, Law, Sexual Assault, Crime, Media
Original Author: Mike Brest
Original Location: Bill Cosby sexual assault conviction vacated by Pennsylvania Supreme Court
