Bill Cosby is going out of jail. On Wednesday, his sentence, in 2018, to a sentence of between three and ten years imprisonment for sexual assault, was quashed by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, under an old agreement with a prosecutor according to which the actor, aged 83, could not be charged afterwards, decided the case.
In 2005, prosecutor Bruce Castor concluded that there was not enough evidence to indict Bill Cosby, accused of sexual assault by Andrea Constand. He had gone further: in complex negotiations to compel Cosby to testify in civil proceedings, he had negotiated a deal protecting the actor from Cosby show of a future criminal charge in the same case.
After the discovery of new elements incriminating him, Bill Cosby was indicted by another prosecutor in 2015, twelve days before the expiration of the statute of limitations. After a first trial that ended without a verdict, he was convicted in 2018 – an emblematic conviction of the #MeToo era – in a second trial, a verdict which was then confirmed on appeal.
Now prosecutors must decide whether to appeal the Supreme Court’s decision or request a new trial.
… /… More information to come on 20 minutes