Former DA says Bill Cosby shielded from prosecution

After Cosby escorted her to a bedroom, she says she “blacked out” and later woke up to find herself naked while Cosby was “biting one of her toes as he crouched at the end of the bed”.

Former Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce Castor testified on Tuesday that he decided in 2005 not to bring charges over the Constand allegations.

Constand, now 44, said Cosby plied her with drugs and alcohol before sexually assaulting her.

His testimony could be a blow to Cosby, who was criminally charged late previous year with sexually assaulting Andrea Constand, after more than 50 women emerged to allege they too had been drugged and sexually abused by him over a period dating back to the 1960s.

Castor says Cosby’s former lawyer told him the decision not to prosecute Cosby was in the lawsuit settlement agreement.

The former DA made the deal so that the comedian could engage in a deposition in Constand’s civil case against him without using the Fifth Amendment-in other words, they wanted him to tell the truth without worrying about incriminating himself on the stand.

He added: “I was hopeful that I had made Ms. Constand a millionaire”.

Cosby is being sued in Los Angeles by Judy Huth, who accuses the comedian of forcing her to perform a sex act on him in a bedroom of the Playboy Mansion around 1974, when she was 15. The case hinges on an alleged deal made between then-prosecutor Bruce Castor and Cosby’s legal team. At the same time, she said, “if they can win without this ever going to trial, then they’ve done their client a big service”.

So far, Cosby has sat during two depositions lead by Huth’s lawyer Gloria Allred.

Castor claims he informed Cosby’s attorney (now deceased) and instructed his first assistant D.A., Rose Vetri Ferman, to notify Constand’s counsel that Cosby would not be prosecuted “for all time”. In the 2005 disposition, Cosby admitted to giving Constand three half-pills of Benadryl at his home; he also said he had obtained quaaludes, a powerful sedative, to give to women before sex, but maintained that he had offered them to women with consent.

She filed a voluntary dismissal of her lawsuit on Tuesday, hours after Cosby entered court in Pennsylvania to face an unrelated charge of aggravated indecent assault in 2004.

Castor testified for most of the morning, stating at one point that he believed in 1995 that the case under which Cosby has now been indicted was “weak”.

After Common Pleas Court Judge Steven T. O’Neill met with lawyers for about 10 minutes in a pre-hearing meeting, O’Neill took his seat on the bench at about 9:43 a.m. Immediately, Steele presented a last-minute motion challenging the hearing, saying it was premature. But this is the only case in which he has been charged.

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 said the agreement not to bring forth charges would last “for all time, yes”.

“We are very happy that the judge has ordered Mr. Cosby to appear for a second deposition in our civil case on behalf of Judy Huth v. William H. Cosby”, said Allred. A timely complaint is especially important when there is no supporting forensic evidence, Castor said.

In the other civil suit, Las Vegas model/dancer Goins, 25, accused Cosby of drugging and sexually assaulting her at the Playboy Mansion in 2008 when she was 18.