Judge to rule whether to drop Bill Cosby sex crimes prosecution

A judge is expected to rule on whether to throw out a sex crimes case against US comedian Bill Cosby.

The 78-year-old was arrested and charged in December with drugging and violating former Temple University athletic department employee Andrea Constand at his Philadelphia mansion in 2004. He could get up to 10 years in prison if convicted.

A court in Norristown, Pennsylvania heard evidence on Tuesday from the former district attorney who declined to arrest Cosby in the case a decade ago.

He testified that he believes his decision shields the comedian from ever being prosecuted in the case.

Former Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce Castor took the stand in a bid by Cosby’s lawyers to get the case against the TV star thrown out before trial because of what they say is a non-prosecution agreement with Mr Castor.

The current district attorney insists there is no record of any such promise.

The proceedings will resume on Wednesday, when Common Pleas Judge Steven T O’Neill said he hopes to rule on whether to throw out the case.

Mr Castor admitted the only place the matter was put in writing was in the 2005 press release announcing his decision not to prosecute.

He acknowledged he did not draw up a formal immunity agreement filed with a judge because, he said, Cosby was afraid that would make him look bad.

Mr Castor said he believed Ms Constand’s story but that proving it would have been problematic because of serious flaws in the case, including what he called her inconsistencies and continued contact with Cosby.

In deciding not to bring charges, he said, he meant to protect Cosby from prosecution “for all time”.

He suggested Cosby and his then-lawyer understood it that way too, because the comedian later agreed to testify without invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in a lawsuit brought against him by Ms Constand.

“Cosby would’ve had to have been nuts to say those things if there was any chance he could’ve been prosecuted,” Mr Castor said, referring to the damaging testimony unsealed last summer.

Mr Castor said he hoped – correctly, it turned out – his ruling would prod Cosby to testify in the lawsuit and help Ms Constand win damages. She eventually settled for an undisclosed amount.

“I was hopeful that I had made Ms Constand a millionaire,” the former DA said.

He said he and Cosby’s then-lawyer, Walter Phillips, did not have an actual agreement that Cosby would testify in exchange for not being prosecuted. Mr Phillips has since died.

Kevin Steele, the newly elected DA who is pursuing the case, has said Cosby would need an immunity agreement in writing to get the case thrown out. He has said he has no evidence one exists.

In a barrage of allegations that have destroyed Cosby’s image as America’s Dad, dozens of women have accused the former TV star of drugging and sexually assaulting them since the 1960s. But this is the only case in which he has been charged.

The unsealing of the testimony from Ms Constand’s lawsuit prompted Mr Castor’s successors to reopen the case and ultimately charge Cosby.

In related news, a Los Angeles judge ordered Cosby to attend another deposition in a lawsuit filed by a woman who says the comic forced her to perform a sex act on him at the Playboy Mansion around 1974, when she was 15.

And model Chloe Goins dropped a lawsuit accusing Cosby of drugging and sexually assaulting her at the Playboy Mansion in 2008. She gave no explanation.