Deadline: With a Pennsylvania judge today ruling that only one other woman can testify in Bill Cosby’s criminal case over the alleged 2004 sexual assault of then-Temple University employee Andrea Constand, the much accused comedian has gotten a bit of a legal break.
Still facing a trial set to start in June and potentially a decade behind bars and fines if found guilty of three felony charges of second-degree aggravated indecent assault, today’s ruling means the 79-year-old Cosby will not have to face testimony from a dozen other women who have claimed the actor assaulted or drugged them over the decades.
In a blow for Montgomery County DA Kevin Steele’s desire to show Cosby’s pattern of “prior bad acts,” Judge Steven O’Neil’s order slices the number of additional alleged victims who may take the stand in addition to Constand from 13 to one. “It is hereby ORDERED and DECREED that the Commonwealth’s Motion is GRANTED as to Prior Alleged Victim Six and DENIED as to Prior Alleged Victims One through Five and Seven through Thirteen,” said the order released this morning (read it here).
That “alleged victim six” is a former assistant to Cosby’s ex-William Morris agent Tom Illius. Represented by attorney Gloria Allred, the woman has said that The Cosby Show star assaulted her in 1996 in L.A., much more recently that the other claimants. more
Hey, hey, hey it’s Big Billy, Fat Albert, Old Weird Harold, and Mudfoot commin’ fo yo Momma.
LOL.
He’s still one of the funniest comedians of my younger days. So sad that he couldn’t control his darker urges and had to wind up like this, with his legacy tarnished. But, having struggled with a few inner demons of my own, I can’t really judge anyone who lost their battle.
Besides, I wonder if he would be in court today if he hadn’t strayed from the plantation and called out African American culture as being responsible for the conditions suffered in the Black ghettos.
That sort of thing will get you in trouble, ya know?
🙂
Vietvet – In the back of my mind I always wonder who was really using who in the Playboy Mansion! Let’s face it, the man wandered off the reservation back in 2009 when he told Blacks to pull up their pants. That doesn’t make what he did right, but I’m betting that not making those statements would have resulted in nobody ever having been the wiser.
@The Rat Fink: The abuses (assuming they occurred, and they probably did) went on for decades. Funny how nothing ever came out until after Cosby went rogue on the whole Hollywood/Black culture scene.
Speaking the truth has consequences, as have seen. If you don’t believe it, just ask Edward Snowden or Julian Assange.
“…as we have seen.”
(Would that we still had edit)
If he still has his passport he should take a long vacation where there is no extradition agreement.
I agree, things were quiet until be came out as an oreo. Sad.
Seems like a very foolish and foolhardy decision by the Judge!
bill cosby sucker punched tommy smothers at hefners whore house years ago. a real trio of assholes.