Bill Cosby Prosecutors Petition To Allow Testimony From 19 More Accusers
Prosecutors in Bill Cosby’s sexual assault retrial asked the judge today to allow jurors to hear from 19 additional woman who allege that the veteran comic assaulted them. They say the new testimony would help establish a pattern of abuse by the Cosby Show star.
Today’s Motion to Introduce Evidence (read it here) is just the latest legal wrangling in the suburban Philadelphia case centered on former Temple University basketball employee Andrea Constand, who says Cosby sexually assaulted her at his home in 2004. Prosecutors made a similar plea in late 2016 in the lead-up to the case’s original trial. That time, they wanted to introduce testimony from 13 additional accusers; after three months, Judge Steven O’Neill denied the motion.
The original trial began June 5 and ended in a mistrial 12 days later, as the jury was deadlocked after 50 hours of deliberation. That same day, Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele announced that he would seek an entirely new trial. Cosby’s retrial in the 2004 case is set to start in April.
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