Bill Cosby’s lawyers renew bid to force accuser to testify

A judge in Pennsylvania has denied a last-ditch effort by Bill Cosby’s lawyers to have criminal sexual assault charges dismissed.

The entertainer’s high-powered defense team attempted to persuade O’Neill, the presiding judge in the case, to erase Magistrate Elizabeth A. McHugh’s decision in May to order a trial and either dismiss the charges against Cosby or force prosecutors to call Constand as a witness, instead of relying on police notes from interviews with the alleged victim.

Cosby, 78, is accused of drugging and assaulting Andrea Constand at his Philadelphia-area home in 2004.

Prosecutors chose not to have Constand testify at the May preliminary hearing, citing the 2013 state Superior Court ruling that allows hearsay testimony at that stage to spare accusers from repeated court appearances.

The Pennsylvania state Supreme Court is now in possession of a petition that challenges whether a defendant has a right to confront a witnesses at a preliminary hearing.

A statement by Cosby’s lawyers after the Thursday hearing said, “Today a man who has meant so much to so many, a man who has given so much to so many, has had his constitutional rights trampled on”.

Judge Steven T. O’Neill says the hearing raised “important” and “unique” questions but he wasn’t persuaded to contradict an appeals court decision.

That hearing saw Cosby ordered to stand trial.

A lower court judge agreed and upheld the charges; Cosby wanted O’Neill to reconsider.

He seconded the findings of the judge in Cosby’s preliminary hearing, saying prosecutors had presented enough evidence to send the case to trial.

Steele read excerpts from Cosby’s deposition in court and said his graphic description of the encounter shows “consciousness of guilt”.

Cosby also is fighting Constand and other accusers in civil court, where he has been sued for defamation and has struck back with countersuits over his denial of their sex assault claims.

Steele, the newly elected district attorney, turned the Cosby case into an election issue.

Cosby was arrested at the end of past year but was released on $1 million bail.

Cosby’s lawyers have argued that the use of such hearsay evidence to hold the case over for trial violated his rights. They sought another preliminary hearing or dismissal of the charges altogether. Falin hinged his argument on protection of victims: a victim of a violent crime shouldn’t be forced to endure aggressive cross-examination in front of a crowd of strangers at a preliminary hearing and then again at trial.

Cosby maintains that any sexual contact he has had with his accusers – including encounters he acknowledges having with Constand – was consensual.

She was one of the first women to accuse Cosby of sexual abuse, long before the public accusations numbered in the dozens. Over her protestations, he urged her to drink wine and take pills that immobilized her, made it impossible for her to speak, and made her legs feel “like jelly”.

Constand told police the drugs left her semiconscious and unable to move. That’s also what Constand said in her statement to police.