Lawyers: Lost evidence, misconduct make defending Cosby hard
PHILADELPHIA — Bill Cosby’s lawyers blame his arrest on sexual assault charges on “a perfect storm” of mistakes by a federal judge and misconduct by an ambitious prosecutor and celebrity lawyer Gloria Allred.
In court papers Thursday, they said Cosby can’t defend the decade-old accusation when key witnesses have died, meeting places have closed and evidence has been lost. The filing represents their latest attempt to have the case thrown out before the June trial near Philadelphia.
“Numerous actors — the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania; a federal judge with a baseless theory; a lawyer who parades her clients’ untimely, unverifiable claims before the media; and a district attorney who publicly branded a celebrity for his own political gain — created a perfect storm of prejudice, bias, and delay,” they wrote.
Cosby, 79, is accused of drugging and molesting former Temple University employee Andrea Constand in 2004. He has called her a willing participant but acknowledged that he gave her three unlabeled blue pills beforehand for stress. Constand was 33 and dating a woman at the time; the long-married Cosby was in his mid-60s.