He flashed a big smile as he hobbled into a Pennsylvania courthouse Wednesday, but comedian Bill Cosby appeared grim and somber by day’s end, when a judge refused to throw out sex-assault charges that could jail him for up to 10 years.
The ruling, which followed two days of hearings, means that Cosby must either take a plea deal or go to trial on allegations that he drugged and molested a young Temple University employee in 2004.
“I hereby find no basis to grant the relief requested,” Montgomery County Judge Steven O’Neill said in ruling that there was no “immunity deal” barring Cosby from prosecution, as defense lawyers had tried to claim.
In a further setback for Cosby, the judge also rejected a defense request for a special prosecutor.
Defense lawyers had accused Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele of making a “political football” out of Cosby’s prosecution.
Cosby, 78, looked tired and frail as he left the courthouse after a long day of hearings ending in a one-two punch of bad news.
A pair of beefy male security guards, one on each side, guided him down the “disabled” ramp leading out of the courthouse.
The man once lauded as “America’s Dad” briefly smiled and waved at a few scattered supporters, one of whom shouted, “Free Bill!”
A trial date has yet to be set on Andrea Constand’s claims that Cosby drugged and sexually attacked her in his suburban Philadelphia home 12 years ago. Cosby has claimed the encounter was consensual.
It will be the first criminal trial by a woman claiming he’d sexually abused her; more than 50 women have come forward since 2000 with allegations ranging from sexual misconduct to rape, many including the use of drugs.
Cosby has denied all of the charges.
The next step will be a preliminary hearing set for March 8, when the parties will argue if there is enough evidence to proceed to trial.
Defense lawyers had staked their immunity claim on a 2005 handshake agreement between Cosby’s then-lawyers and then-District Attorney Bruce Castor — in which Castor said the Constand case was too weak and promised there would never be a prosecution.
Current prosecutors had countered that Castor had no legal authority to make such a guarantee — only state judges could. In addition, they said, the “immunity deal” was never set in writing.
“A secret agreement that permits a wealthy defendant to buy his way out of a criminal case isn’t right,” Steele, the current DA, said in arguments earlier Wednesday.
Cosby’s lawyers also claimed the charges should be dismissed because of the delay — 12 years between the encounter with Constand and the charges.
Is it actually still possible to laugh at Bill Cosby?