Cosby
lawyers seek to bar some alleged victims from sex
assault trial
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[November 01, 2016]
By Joseph Ax
(Reuters) - Bill Cosby's
lawyers will ask a Pennsylvania state judge on Tuesday
to keep more than a dozen women who have accused the
comedian of sexual assault off the witness stand at his
trial on charges of molesting a former basketball coach
at his alma mater.
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More than 60 women have accused the 79-year-old entertainer,
once beloved by Americans as the father on the 1980s TV hit "The
Cosby Show," of sexually assaulting them, often after plying
them with drugs and alcohol, in a series of attacks dating back
decades.
Only one of those claims resulted in criminal charges, filed
against Cosby days before the statute of limitations was to
expire. Andrea Constand, a former basketball coach at Cosby's
alma mater Temple University, said he gave her pills before
assaulting her at his Pennsylvania house in 2004.
Prosecutors have asked Judge Steven O'Neill of Montgomery County
Court of Common Pleas in Pennsylvania to allow 13 other women
who have accused Cosby of sexual assault to testify at trial in
order to show he engaged in a pattern of drugging and attacking
his alleged victims.
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Cosby has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. O'Neill has
scheduled two days of hearings on the proposed witnesses and
other pre-trial matters.
In general, prosecutors are barred from introducing evidence of
a defendant's unrelated prior bad acts for fear it could
prejudice the jury. On rare occasions, however, judges will
allow it if the evidence shows a clear and longstanding pattern
of behavior.
Prosecutors are also seeking permission to use Cosby's sworn
testimony from a deposition during Constand's 2005 civil
lawsuit, in which Cosby acknowledged providing women with
medication and then having consensual sexual encounters with
them.
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Cosby's lawyers have asked O'Neill to bar that deposition from the
trial, arguing that Cosby only agreed to testify after the
then-Montgomery County district attorney assured him no criminal
charges would be brought.
In addition, his lawyers have mounted yet another attempt to dismiss
the case, this time based on the argument that prosecutors waited
too long to bring the case.
In court papers filed last week, his attorneys said Cosby is legally
blind and has memory problems, preventing him from fully
participating in preparing his own defense.
The trial is set for June.
(Reporting by Joseph Ax in New York; Editing by Scott Malone and
Diane Craft)
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