Bill Cosby Sexual Assault Retrial Date Set

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Summary: Bill Cosby’s criminal retrial will begin on November 6 in Pennsylvania. 

Comedian Bill Cosby’s first criminal rape trial resulted in a hung jury. Since then, he has been out, waiting for a retrial date to be set; and yesterday, it was announced that his second trial will begin on November 6 in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.

  

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Cosby, 80, was accused of raping former Temple University employee, Andrea Constand, in 2004. She said that she met him through work, as he was a Temple alumni and university benefactor; and she said that she had viewed him as a mentor.

In 2004, Constand visited Cosby’s home alone, and she claimed that he had given her a drugged drink. She said that while she was unconscious, Cosby had sexually assaulted her.

Cosby admitted to the drugging and the sex, but claimed the sex was consensual. During his criminal trial, his defense team questioned why Constand had remained in contact with him after the alleged incident, and she said that she had to for work.

Cosby’s defense team also tried to discredit the prosecution’s first witness, a former talent agency assistant who said Cosby raped her in the 1970s. The witness, Kelly Johnson, said she had visited Cosby in a Beverly Hills bungalow and that he had forced himself on her. Cosby’s team said that after Johnson’s alleged incident she remained in contact with him, hoping he would help her aspiring acting career.

Johnson was tearful on the stand but visibly flustered by Cosby’s defense team questioning her motives.

After two weeks of testimony and three days of deliberation, the jury in the first trial could not agree beyond a reasonable doubt that Cosby had raped Constand.

The prosecutor in the case, Philadelphia’s District Attorney Kevin Steele, vowed to retry Cosby and bring him to justice. The actor who was the star of The Cosby Show has been accused by almost 60 women of drugging and raping in the past few decades, but the Constand case is the only time a criminal charge has been pursued. The other cases’ statute of limitations has expired.

However, some of the other accusers have taken Cosby to civil court, and some of those cases are pending.

One of Cosby’s lawyers, Brian McMonagle, told Good Morning America after the first trial that if there was a second that the team was “confident” Cosby would be acquitted.

“What I would say to all of Mr. Cosby’s fans and some of the folks on the other side of this, we have a wonderful criminal justice system in this country,” McMonagle said. “Trust it, believe in it, and I’m confident that if this case is retried, he’ll be acquitted.”

• Prosecution Promises Retrial in Cosby Rape Case 
• Defense Team Flusters First Witness in Bill Cosby Rape Trial
• Bill Cosby’s Wife Accompanies Him to Rape Trial

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