On Wednesday, Pennsylvania’s highest court, the State Supreme Coutrt, overturned Bill Cosby’s sex assault conviction, citing a previous agreement that prevented him from being charged in the first place.
The 83-year-old who has served two years of his three to 10-year sentence will walk free according to The NY Post.
The disgraced TV star has been locked away in a prison near Philadelphia. As previously reported in 2018, Cosby was sentenced to serve three to 10 years in prison for sexually assaulting and drugging Andrea Constand at his home in 2004. More than 60 women had accused the actor of sexual misconduct, The Associated Press
reported.Related stories: BILL COSBY IS GOING HOME AFTER COURT OVERTURNS SEXUAL ASSAULT CONVICTION
Charged in late 2015, a prosecutor armed with newly unsealed evidence was Cosby’s downward spiral as more accusers came forward from Constand’s damaging deposition.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court said the trial’s testimony tarnished the case as more accusers testified their experiences with the famed comedian in the 1980s.
While lower appeals court does allow accusers to express a pattern to identify an ongoing crime, the initial accuser to testify should have never happened, making all other accusers part of a bad act testimony, his attorneys argued.
In December, his attorneys argued before a court that Cosby has suffered “unquantifiable prejudice” in the case, and that a previous deal with a former prosecutor said that he would never be charged. His lawyers also challenged the judge’s previous to decision to let five accusers testify in the case.
On Wednesday a judge rendered a ruling that vacated Cosby’s conviction and set him free, according to reports.
Cosby has been labelled as the first celebrity to be taken down by the #Metoo, alongside convicted rapist and disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, who is currently serving a 23 year prison sentence in California.
But unlike Weinstein, Cosby received, according to his appellate lawyers say, unfair treatment as accusers’ prosecutors were presenting vague evidence about the uncharged conduct.
Last year, Cosby’s lawyers filed a motion requesting that he be released from prison. Cosby’s lawyer Andrew Wyatt said in a statement to Yahoo:
“The reason: Mr. Cosby is elderly and blind — and always needs to be escorted around the prison by support service inmates, known as Certified Peer Specialists (CPI),” Wyatt said at the time. “Those inmates could fall victim to the coronavirus and easily spread the disease to Mr. Cosby as they wheel him around in a wheelchair. Among their duties, the inmates bring Mr. Cosby to the infirmary for his doctor appointments and clean his cell.”
Wyatt continued, “In addition, Mr. Cosby is constantly in contact with the correction officers who could contract the disease on the outside and bring it inside the prison, potentially exposing Mr. Cosby to the virus.”
Due to a reported “previous” agreement with prosecutors that would supposedly prevent him from being charged, Cosby now will be set free, according to reports.
This is a developing story.