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Bill Cosby is scheduled to go on trial on three counts of felony
aggravated indecent assault on June 5, Judge Steven O'Neill said Tuesday at a
preliminary hearing.
The judge
also said the district attorney filed a motion saying he intends to present 13
alleged prior instances.
Rule 404(b) of the Pennsylvania
Rules of Evidence allows prosecutors to call witnesses about a defendant's
previous conduct if it relates to the trial at hand.
The women who might testify are
not named in the motion, but more than 50 have come forward in recent years to
say Cosby sexually molested them.
They could help the prosecutors
buttress the allegations of Andrea Constand, an employee at his alma mater,
Temple University. She said she went to Cosby's home in a Philadelphia suburb
in 2004 for a career consultation and he gave her a mix of pills and wine that
left her incapacitated and unable to consent to sex.
This is the first time Cosby has
faced criminal prosecution. Cosby, 79, has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
The motion to call the other
women was not argued on Tuesday at the hearing in Norristown, Pennsylvania, and
O'Neill didn't say when he would rule on it.
Defense lawyers said they planned
to file motions for a change of venue and the judge gave them 60 days to file.
Cosby arrived at the hearing with
his lawyers. He wore a light gray sports coat with dark stripes and entered
holding a man's arm and carrying a cane.
Cosby's lawyers want the judge to
throw out two key pieces of evidence in the case: a deposition Cosby gave in a
2005 lawsuit by Constand and a recording of a phone call between Cosby and
Constand's mother.
The 2005 deposition
The criminal case is based partly
on the deposition Cosby gave in Constand's 2005 civil lawsuit, in which he
talked about having extramarital affairs and giving other women drugs with
their consent so they'd have sex with him. He also described the sexual
encounter with Constand, saying it was consensual.
Cosby's lawyers want that
deposition thrown out of court.
They say Cosby only answered the
deposition questions because Bruce Castor, the district attorney in 2005,
promised to never bring a criminal case based on Constand's allegations. To use
the deposition now violates Cosby's right against self-incrimination, they say.
Castor said he made that promise
so the entertainer would not be able to use the Fifth Amendment to avoid
answering questions in a deposition, according to an email from Castor to his
successor, Risa Vetri Ferman. The civil suit was the best chance Constand had
for finding justice, the Castor email said.
Kevin Steele, the current
district attorney, has not responded to the defense motion.
Constand filed her lawsuit after
Castor decided not to prosecute.
The deposition was sealed when
the parties reached a settlement in 2006. The criminal case was reopened after
The Associated Press went to court to compel the unsealing of the deposition.
In the years before that, more
than 50 women had come forward to say Cosby sexually assaulted them, often by
slipping them drugs. Cosby has denied all those accusations.
Almost all those other alleged
incidents occurred outside the statute of limitations.
Phone call with
Constand's mother
Cosby's lawyers cited wiretapping
and electronic surveillance laws in their motion to suppress a recording of a
January 17, 2005, phone call between Cosby and Gianna Constand, the mother of
Andrea Constand.
The lawyers say he didn't know
Gianna Constand was recording when he called her in Pickering, Ontario, from
his home in California.
Canadian law allows calls to be
legally recorded with only one party consenting, the motion says.
But the defense lawyers say
Pennsylvania law, which requires two-party consent, should be applied in this
case.
In his response, prosecutor
Steele says Cosby knew or suspected the calls were being recorded.
A transcript of the call has him
asking about a beeping, which Gianna Constand says was a parrot. In the
deposition, Cosby was asked if he believed the call was recorded and he replied
yes, Steele's response says.
Further, Cosby knew he was
placing a call to Canada, which only requires one-party consent, Steele says.
A transcript of the call shows
Cosby offering to pay for Andrea Constands' further education.
Source:CNN
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