Disgraced comedian Bill Cosby just got some good news in court: He was granted the right to appeal his 2018 sexual assault conviction in front of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
Fox News reported on the matter, recapping that Cosby, 82, has been in prison for nearly two years after he was convicted of drugging and sexually assaulting a woman back in 2004. After being found guilty by a grand jury, Cosby was sentenced to three to seven years behind bars.
The state’s Supreme Court has now agreed to look over two aspects of the case, the first being the judge’s ruling that prosecutors could call five other accusers to testify about incidents that allegedly happened with Cosby many years ago. Lawyers for the former “The Cosby Show” star have been trying to argue for years that these testimonies were unreliable and should never have been permitted.
Brian W. Perry, an attorney representing Cosby, argued in his appeal that the testimonies of the five accusers “flips constitutional jurisprudence on its head, and the ‘presumption of guilt,’ rather than the presumption of innocence, becomes the premise.” The other aspect of the case that the court will be reviewing is whether or not the jury should have been allowed to hear that Cosby had given Quaaludes to women before the 2004 incident took place.
Cosby, 82, had been known as “America’s Dad” before dozens of women came forward to accuse him of sexual assault. Prosecutors subsequently moved forward with the case of Temple University employee Andrea Constant, the woman who was allegedly assaulted in the 2004 case for which Cosby is currently in prison. He has claimed that the sexual encounter with Constant was consensual.
Cosby spokesman Andrew Wyatt said that the star is “extremely thankful” for news of his appeal, going on to point out that the protests over police brutality against black people that have taken place in recent weeks has exposed the “corruption that lies within the criminal justice system.”
“As we have all stated, the false conviction of Bill Cosby is so much bigger than him — it’s about the destruction of ALL Black people and people of color in America,” Wyatt said. Cosby has long protested his innocence and has said that he will never express remorse to a parole board, even if it means he’ll be staying in prison longer.
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