American veteran actor, Bill Cosby has been freed after nearly three years in prison following a decision by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to overturn his 2018 conviction on three charges of aggravated indecent assault.
The 83-year-old comedian and actor has long maintained his innocence in the case, which stems from an accusation that he drugged and had sex with a Temple University employee in 2004.
The court ruling resulted from an agreement Mr. Cosby struck with a district attorney, Bruce Castor, in 2005 wherein Mr. Castor declined to prosecute Mr. Cosby in exchange for the comedian’s testimony during a civil trial.
Mr. Cosby served more than two years of a three to 10-year sentence at a state prison near Philadelphia. He took to his official Twitter page and shared a statement while posting a picture of himself:
“Thank you to all my fans, supporters, and friends who stood by me through this ordeal. I have never changed my stance nor my story. I have always maintained my innocence. Special thanks to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court for upholding the rule of law”.
Meanwhile, Andrea Constand, Bill Cosby’s accuser whose allegations helped put the comedian behind bars, has released a statement along with her attorneys after the 83-year-old was released from prison.
In the statement shared to Twitter, she called the conviction’s overturning “disappointing” and said that “it may discourage those who seek justice for sexual assault in the criminal justice system from reporting or participating in the prosecution of the assailant or may force a victim to choose between filing either a criminal or civil action”.
More details on the court ruling
The Pennsylvania justices ruled that the agreement prevented prosecution for the claims brought by Andrea Constand, and wrote that the prosecutorial discretion of Pennsylvania’s district attorneys was not “free of the constraints of due process”.
They further wrote that Mr. Cosby “must be discharged, and any future prosecution on these particular charges must be barred. We do not dispute that this remedy is both severe and rare. But it is warranted here, indeed compelled”.
The current district attorney of the jurisdiction where the trial took place, Montgomery County, in a statement noted that Mr. Cosby “was found guilty by a jury and now goes free on a procedural issue that is irrelevant to the facts of the crime”.
Well, the shocking news comes a year after Mr. Cosby’s parole was denied after he declined to participate in a sexual violence program conducted in the prison, with his attorneys arguing at the time that participation in such a program would make their client appear guilty.
The high-profile status of Mr. Cosby, once known as “America’s Dad” and star of the hugely popular and influential 1980s The Cosby Show, drew national attention to the case.
It can be recalled that in 2015, President Barack Obama commented on the news, telling reporters: “I’ll say this, if you give a woman, or a man for that matter, without his or her knowledge, a drug, and then have sex with that person without consent, that’s rape. And I think this country, any civilized country, should have no tolerance for rape”.
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