Cosby lawyers seek to bar some alleged victims from sex assault trial

[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.

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.

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.

Bill Cosby departs the Montgomery County Courthouse after a preliminary hearing in Norristown, Pennsylvania, U.S. May 24, 2016. REUTERS/Matt Rourke/Pool/File Photo

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)

[© 2016 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved.]

Copyright 2016 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.