Disgraced actor Bill Cosby attempts to overturn sexual assault conviction

Lawyers for former actor and convicted sex offender Bill Cosby asked a Pennsylvania appeal court to overturn the 82-year-old’s sexual assault conviction on Monday.

Cosby is serving a three- to 10-year prison term for drugging and molesting a woman at his home in what became the first celebrity trial of the #MeToo era.

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His lawyers have long argued that he relied on a supposed non-prosecution agreement when he gave testimony in a lawsuit brought by Andrea Constand in 2005 – testimony that would subsequently prove incriminating when it was unsealed a decade later.

On Monday, the three-judge appeal panel questioned why Cosby’s top-shelf lawyers did not get the immunity agreement in writing and approved by a judge, as is the norm.

“This is not a low-budget operation. … They had an unlimited budget,” said Superior Court Judge John T. Bender. “Could it be they knew this was something the trial court would never have allowed?”

Judge Carolyn Nichols echoed Bender’s point, asking, “how can the elected district attorney bind that office in perpetuity?”

Cosby’s lawyers also attacked Montgomery County Judge Steven O’Neill’s decision to let five other accusers testify when Cosby went on trial last year, after more than 60 accusers came forward and his deposition was unsealed. Prosecutors said they chose women whose accounts showed that Cosby had a “signature” crime pattern. Bender seemed to agree, interrupting defence arguments that their stories had significant differences.

“The reality of it is, he gives them drugs and then he sexually assaults them,” he said. “That’s the pattern, is it not?”

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Kristen L. Weisenberger, representing Cosby, said one of the women wasn’t even sure she’d been violated. But prosecutors said that is how Cosby planned it.

“The defendant should not be rewarded because she has no recollection because of the drugs he gave her,” Assistant District Attorney Adrienne Jappe argued.

The court’s decision on how many other accusers should be allowed to testify will be closely watched by sexual assault survivors and defence lawyers as men like movie mogul Harvey Weinstein await trial in #MeToo-type cases.

O’Neill had allowed just one other accuser at Cosby’s first trial in 2017, when the jury failed to reach a verdict.

Cosby’s lawyers called the decision to let five testify at the retrial arbitrary and prejudicial. However, the panel said judges are not bound by their earlier trial rulings.

Cosby, who is serving time at a state prison near Philadelphia, was not in court for the arguments at the Pennsylvania Capitol in Harrisburg. The court typically takes several months to issue decisions.

Long beloved as “America’s Dad” for his TV role as Dr. Cliff Huxtable, Cosby has called his encounters with Constand and other accusers consensual.

In his deposition, Cosby acknowledged getting Quaaludes in the 1970s to give to women before sex, including 19-year-old Therese Serignese, whom he had met at a Las Vegas hotel. Serignese travelled from Florida to attend Monday’s hearing.

“Remember, there are 60 accusers,” she said. “Out of 19 prior bad act witnesses requested by the prosecutors, the judge only allowed five. I say Bill Cosby got a good deal there.”