'It was a gut punch:' She came forward against Bill Cosby. Now, a sexual predator is free.

Before the phone call that ripped the scabs off her slowly healing wounds, Victoria Valentino was planning another peaceful day at her cozy southern California cottage in the Verdugo Mountains, just north of Pasadena.

She sat in her kitchen sipping a second cup of tea while watching a floral arranging program on public television. Hours tending to her garden would follow. Life, since Bill Cosby went to prison nearly three years ago after being found guilty of drugging and sexually assaulting former Temple University women’s basketball employee Andrea Constand at his Montgomery County home in 2004, has been good.

And then it wasn't.

“I was stunned!” said Valentino, 78, who is among 60 women to accuse Cosby of drugging and sexually assaulting them. “I got a call from a news outlet that Cosby was getting out of prison. It was a gut punch. I don’t even know what to think. My brain is still trying to process what has happened. A serial sexual predator like him getting out of prison on a legal glitch isn’t justice. This is unbelievable and unconscionable!”

The glitch: The Pennsylvania Supreme Court vacated Cosby’s sexual assault conviction Wednesday and immediately released him from prison, ruling that Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele, who brought the case to trial in 2018, was bound by former county D.A. Bruce Castor, Jr.’s agreement with Cosby not to charge the entertainer if he would be deposed in a civil case brought by Constand.

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A glitch. The rule of law, the high court justices deemed. As I spoke with Valentino by phone on the day the scabs reopened, she wondered about laws and justice. She finds it hypocritical that the court is setting a convicted sexual predator free on a technicality in the law.

What, Valentino asked me, about the other rule of law? The law that states it is a crime to drug and sexually assault woman upon woman upon woman for decades, to violate them in countless ways, to violate them physically and psychologically forever in ways only his victims can understand. What about that law, Valentino wonders? What about a sexual predator like Cosby, who she says raped her and a girlfriend in his Los Angeles apartment by drugging them in 1969 when she was 26 years old?

“For the courts to let him out of prison on a technicality is insanity,” she said. “We never saw this coming. We got a letter recently that his parole was preemptively denied; he was getting a parole hearing in September of this year. But it was denied because he has shown no remorse for what he did to Andrea and wouldn’t take part in any programs for abusers.

“Now he’s out. A jury found him guilty of drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea, but now he’s out. That’s not justice.”

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I first met Valentino while covering the Cosby trial. I found her to be honest and open about what she alleges Cosby did to her and at least 60 other women spanning decades. On those days in 2018 when Cosby was found guilty and later sentenced, she and other accusers openly wept tears of relief. But now, as Cosby has been set free, she wonders what that says to women about their worth.

“Do our lives mean nothing?” she said. “Do the lives of those he damaged, and those of our children, and the personal relationships he damaged moving forward, does it all mean nothing now?

“We were vindicated when he was convicted. But now the court says Cosby can’t be prosecuted again. We’re back to square one. A serial rapist is free again. I’m literally shaking talking about this. Where’s the justice?”

I sat in that Montgomery County courtroom. I heard the testimony of Constand and others who said Cosby drugged and sexually violated them. They were incredibly believable. What the Supreme Court decided the other day is unbelievable. The possible chilling effect allowing Cosby to go free might have on future sexual assault victims from coming forward cannot be understated.

The overturning of Cosby’s conviction and his release from prison is not vindication for him, as his smarmy mouthpiece, Andrew Wyatt, barked to media and sycophants outside Cosby’s home on the day justice lost its way. A jury heard testimony and found him guilty of drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand, and Judge Steven T. O’Neill sentenced him to prison for 3-to-10 years.

Cosby remains a convicted sexual offender. A legal glitch doesn’t change that.

But it does reopen slow-healing wounds.

Phil Gianficaro is a columnist for the Bucks County Courier Times, where this column originally appeared. Follow him on Twitter: @philgianficaro

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This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Bill Cosby victim on overturned conviction: 'It was a gut punch'