Bill Cosby loses bid to get criminal case dismissed

Bill Cosby loses bid to get criminal case dismissed

Saranac Hale Spencer, Maria Puente, USA TODAY July 7, 2016

A judge on Thursday denied Bill Cosby's effort to compel the accuser in his criminal sex assault case to testify before trial, ruling the comedian shouldn't get a new preliminary hearing. 

NORRISTOWN, Pa. — Bill Cosby lost another bid to get criminal sexual-assault charges tossed, after a judge ruled Thursday that there is enough evidence to try Cosby even though he was unable to cross-examine his accuser at a preliminary hearing.

Cosby arrived at the courthouse here in suburban Philadelphia to ask Judge Steven O'Neill to reverse an earlier decision to send Cosby to trial on charges of aggravated sexual assault stemming from an encounter between Cosby and accuser Andrea Constand in 2004.

Cosby’s lawyers insisted a trial could not be held until Constand gets on the stand and they get a chance to cross-examine her. Constand did not testify at the May preliminary hearing; instead, prosecutors cited a recent court ruling they believe allowed them to use her police statement taken more than a decade after the encounter.

A lower court judge agreed and upheld the charges; Cosby wanted O’Neill to reconsider.

The judge ruled against Cosby's motion, which sought to compel Constand to testify and be cross-examined under oath, or dismiss the charges....

Cosby, 78, a mentor to Constand, 43, when she was working at Temple University, is accused of drugging and molesting her 12 years ago at his home in Montgomery County outside Philadelphia. She accused him to police a year later but charges were never filed, so she sued him in civil court. The two settled in 2006 and the case was sealed.

Then, after dozens of women began accusing Cosby of drugging and/or raping them in episodes dating back decades, a judge in 2015 released part of the transcript of a deposition Cosby gave in the Constand civil suit, in which he acknowledged obtaining drugs to give to women he sought for sex....
http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/people/2016/07/07/cosby-lawyers-no-cross-examination-no-trial/86794196/