Bill Cosby’s conviction for sexual assault was overturned by a Pennsylvania appeals court and was freed from prison in a dramatic reversal. Cosby’s case represented the first high-profile sexual assault trial to unfold in the aftermath of the #MeToo movement.
Prosecutors say that the stunning reversal of fortune for 83-year-old Cosby, once labeled and beloved as “America’s Dad,” came after the court found an agreement with a previous prosecutor that prevented him from being charged in the case. It also puts out the possibility of a third trial in the case.
Cosby was convicted in 2018 for drugging and molesting an employee of Temple University Andrea Constand at his Philadelphia estate in 2004.
Cosby was already serving three years of a three-to-ten year prison sentence at a maximum-security facility outside Philadelphia when the seven-member Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that Cosby was denied a fair trial in 2018. Brian W. Perry, Cosby’s lawyer on appeal, said that his client was released from prison shortly after 2 p.m. and was headed to his suburban home in Philadelphia.
At the end of the trial in April 2018, the jury convicted Cosby, who for years had brightened America’s living rooms as a beloved entertainer and father figure, of three counts of aggravated indecent assault against Constand.
The ruling also came soon after allegations of sexual assault had been made against powerful Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, sparking a fierce national discourse around sexual misconduct and assault.
Constand, at the time of the conviction, praised the guilty verdict saying, “Truth prevails,” and the National Organization for Women described it as “a notice to sexual predators everywhere.”
In 2019, an interim court upheld the verdict. The Supreme Court, however, agreed to consider the case, and at a hearing in December, some of the court’s 7 justices questioned prosecutors sharply. In their 79-page opinion, the judges wrote that a “non-prosecution agreement” that had been struck with a previous prosecutor meant that Mr. Cosby should not have been charged in the case, and that he should be discharged. They barred a retrial.
In that testimony, Mr. Cosby acknowledged giving Quaaludes to women he was seeking for sex. That played a key part in his trial after Mr. Castor’s successors reopened the case and charged Mr. Cosby in December 2015. This was coming just days before the 12-year statute of limitations expired in the case amid a number of new accusations from women with similar accusations of drugging and sexual assault against Mr. Cosby.
“In light of these circumstances, the subsequent decision by successor D. A. to prosecute Cosby violated Cosby’s due process rights,” the appeals ruling said. “No other conclusion comports with the principles of due process and fundamental fairness to which all aspects of our criminal justice system must adhere.”
Mr. Perry, one of the lawyers, commended the decision of the court.
“We are thrilled with the Supreme Court’s decision,” he said. “To be honest with you, we all believed, collectively, that this is how the case would end. We did not think he was treated fairly and fortunately the Supreme Court agreed.”
Scott Berkowitz, the president of RAINN, the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, said: “We are deeply disappointed in today’s ruling by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, and by the message this decision sends to the brave survivors who came forward to seek justice for what Bill Cosby did to them. This is not justice.”
