Pennsylvania’s highest court threw out Bill Cosby’s sexual assault conviction and opened the way for his immediate release from prison Wednesday in a stunning reversal of fortune for the comedian once known as “America’s Dad,” ruling that the prosecutor who brought the case was bound by his predecessor’s agreement not to charge Cosby.
Cosby, 83, has served more than two years of a three-to 10-year sentence after being found guilty of drugging and violating Temple University sports administrator Andrea Constand at his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004. He was the first celebrity tried and convicted in the #MeToo era.
Cosby was arrested in 2015, when a district attorney armed with newly unsealed evidence — the comic’s damaging deposition testimony in a lawsuit brought by Constand — brought charges against him days before the 12-year statute of limitations ran out.
But the Pennsylvania Supreme Court said that District Attorney Kevin Steele, who made the decision to arrest Cosby, was obligated to stand by his predecessor’s promise not to charge Cosby. There was no evidence that promise was ever put in writing.
Justice David Wecht, writing for a split court, said Cosby had relied on the former prosecutor’s decision not to charge him when the comedian later gave his potentially incriminating testimony in the Constand’s civil case.
The court said that overturning the conviction, and barring any further prosecution, “is the only remedy that comports with society’s reasonable expectations of its elected prosecutors and our criminal justice system.”
Cosby has always maintained his innocence and said that he would not participate in any sexual predator courses even if he had to spend his entire 3-10 year sentence behind bars. The court also pointed out that prosecutors should have never allowed others to have testified against the comedian when there was no way of vetting them for truthfulness.
Cosby should be walking out of a Pennsylvania within the next 2 hours according to our sources.
Bill Cosby was viewed as “America’s Dad” prior to his unjust conviction and he is estimated to have a net worth of 400 million dollars and was also rumored to have offered to buy a major television network prior to his conviction.
This is a developing story.
Source: AP/TMZ
