Comedian Bill Cosby will stand trial on all charges against him related to allegations of sexual assault from a lesbian former employee of Temple University, a Montgomery County judge ruled May 24 after a three-and-a-half hour preliminary hearing.
If convicted of aggravated indecent assault, he could face up to 10 years in prison.
Cosby waived his formal arraignment scheduled for July 20, meaning he does not have to appear in court again until the start of the trial. It’s likely that date will be delayed by several defense motions.
“Thank you,” Cosby told Cheltenham Township District Judge Elizabeth McHugh at the end of the proceeding in his only time publicly addressing the court.
Andrea Constand has accused Cosby, 78, of drugging and sexually assaulting her at his Cheltenham home in 2004. After a special hearing in February, another Montgomery judge ruled that Cosby’s case could proceed, despite his defense arguing that he had an oral agreement in 2005 from a previous county district attorney not to prosecute him.
Constand was not in the Norristown courtroom Tuesday, but her absence loomed large. Pennsylvania law does not require a victim to testify at a preliminary hearing, which is held to determine if there is enough evidence that a crime occurred for a case to proceed to trial. Constand now lives in Toronto, Canada. Cosby is free after posting a portion of his $1 million bail.
The prosecution and defense spent the early part of Cosby’s hearing arguing about the admissibility of hearsay evidence.
Brian McMonagle, Cosby’s lawyer, said the court would only be hearing witnesses “tell you that somebody told me 11 years ago about something that happened 12 years ago, and as a result of that we’re going to have a trial.”
“That’s unprecedented,” McMonagle said, adding, “It’s a complete denial of this defendant’s due process.”
McHugh let the hearing continue with the prosecution’s witnesses reading statements taken 11 years ago from Constand and Cosby. All the statements were typed by investigators, not audio or video recorded.
Katharine J. Hart, a former Montgomery detective, was questioned about the more than 20-page statement that she and Richard Schaffer, a former Cheltenham detective, took from Constand. Hart said she spoke with Constand May 22 and Constand “indicated her willingness to be available for trial.”
John Norris, Cheltenham police chief, was questioned about the statement that he and two other investigators took from Cosby in New York City in 2005. After some legal squabbling, McMonagle also called Schaffer, now a sergeant in Cheltenham, to testify about Constand’s statement from the same time.
According to Constand’s statement, she went to Cosby’s home sometime in mid-January or mid-February 2004 to talk about the future of her career. She was working with the women’s basketball program at Temple, but considering going to school for massage therapy.
“I was emotionally occupied while that was going on and I had lost some sleep over it,” Constand said in the statement.
Constand’s and Cosby’s statements both said that Cosby offered Constand some pills to help with the sleep loss. Constand said she received three pills. Cosby said he gave her one and a half pills of Benadryl, an over-the-counter medication. Both statements said Cosby offered Constand red wine.
“I started to have blurred vision,” Constand said in the statement. “I told Mr. Cosby I couldn’t even talk. I started to panic.”
“I had no strength in my legs,” she continued. “They felt rubbery and like jelly. I was a little spacey.”
Constand said Cosby laid her on the couch and later positioned himself behind her. He digitally penetrated her and placed her hand on his genitals, she said in the statement, adding she felt “paralyzed.” Cosby’s statement described the incident as “petting … touching and kissing with clothes on.”
In Cosby’s statement, he said Constand never told him to stop and she never said she was having an adverse reaction to the medication. His statement said Constand told him to stop during a sexual encounter on another occasion and he did.
Both statements agreed that Constand’s mother called Cosby not long after the alleged assault and that Cosby apologized to both of them.
“I apologized twice,” Cosby said in his statement. “I said, ‘What can I do?’ And she (the mother) said, ‘Nothing.’ She said, ‘Your apology is enough.’”
Cosby later offered to pay for Constand to attend graduate school as long as she maintained a 3.0 grade point average, he said in the statement.
The defense focused on the number of sections in Constand’s statement that she had crossed out and changed after investigators typed it. They also noted that Constand contacted civil lawyers before the police about the alleged assault, and said she lied to investigators about contacting Cosby after the incident.
Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele said Constand’s credibility was not an issue to be determined at a preliminary hearing. He said Cosby’s statement “corroborated what the victim told in terms of the aspects of the crime.”
“He’s there saying, ‘Take ‘em. Take ‘em,’” Steele said about the pills Cosby offered Constand, “and pushing the wine on her when she says she hasn’t eaten anything. Now we’re getting to the point where she’s not capable of consent.”
“That is the evidence,” he added.
McMonagle said there was not enough evidence without Constand’s presence in court.
“What you got, with all due respect, were words typed on paper … ” he said, “in a statement that is crossed out, reworded and redone.”
After the hearing, Gloria Allred, who has represented another Cosby accuser, addressed the controversy surrounding Constand’s repeated contact with Cosby after the alleged assault.
“I don’t think one should take that as a tacit admission … that nothing happened of a criminal nature,” Allred said on the steps of the Montgomery County Courthouse.
She added that Cosby’s lawyers could be trying to have an impact on the jury pool by attacking Constand’s credibility at the preliminary hearing.
McMonagle did not make a statement outside the courthouse.