Prosecutors in Pennsylvania on Monday, 29th of November, asked the U.S.
Supreme Court to review a lower court’s ruling that overturned the
sexual assault conviction of Bill Cosby.
Cosby, 84, had served about three years in prison after being found
guilty in 2018 of drugging and sexually assaulting a Temple University
staff member more than a decade earlier.
But the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled in June that a
“non-prosecution agreement� with a prior prosecutor should have
precluded him from being criminally charged in the case. Cosby was
released from prison on June 30.
The District Attorney’s Office in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania,
filed a petition for the high court to consider whether that agreement
in which then-prosecutor Bruce Castor promised not to file criminal
charges against Cosby if the comedian would testify in a civil lawsuit —
should be treated as “a grant of immunity.�
The petition is “the right thing to do because of the precedent set
in this case� by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, Montgomery County
District Attorney Kevin Steele said in a statement.
“This decision as it stands will have far-reaching negative
consequences beyond Montgomery County and Pennsylvania. The U.S. Supreme
Court can right what we believe is a grievous wrong,� Steele said.
According to USA TODAY, the high court does not have to accept the
petition. Under court rules, it could take up to six weeks for the court
to act once a petition has been filed, responses received, the case is
circulated among justices and a case is scheduled for consideration at
one of the justices’ private Friday conferences.
Andrew Wyatt, Cosby’s spokesperson, issued a statement to USA TODAY
saying the petition is “pathetic” and a sign of the prosecutor’s
“fixation” on Cosby.
