Celebrity Justice Prevails Again
Note: This column first appeared in The [London] Times on Sunday, July 4, 2021.
Somehow, I knew Bill Cosby would find a way to beat the system.
Because, in the United States at least, there's justice. And then there's celebrity justice. It's a lesson I learned when I first began covering the Cosby story more than 16 years ago.
Allegations that the entertainer known as “America’s Dad” had drugged and sexually assaulted a woman at his Elkins Park mansion just outside Philadelphia broke on January 20, 2005. I was an investigative crime reporter for the Philadelphia Daily News. When my boss assigned the story to me, my initial reaction was, "Not the Cos!"
I'd grown up watching the animated series Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids and was a devoted fan of The Cosby Show.
It's hard to explain how naïve I was. I truly believed that Cosby, 83, was Cliff Huxtable, the warm-hearted doctor that he played on TV.
He fooled so many people for so many years. He was the consummate family man. He wrote bestselling books on fatherhood and marriage. He lectured comics about swearing in their routines while keeping his own family friendly. And, when this story broke in 2005, he was in the midst of a cross-country tour, holding town halls in inner cities, in the wake of an explosive speech in Washington, D.C. blaming black parents for the poor behaviour of their children
His pristine image was the perfect disguise for over half a century of predatory behaviour. And, as I would later discover, he had a host of enablers that helped him.
Cosby didn't prey on women who were his equals professionally, like Phylicia Rashad, the accomplished actress who played his television wife. Instead he chose young, naïve women and reeled them in. He'd reach out to their agent and offer to mentor them. He’d charm their parents. Then once they were in an environment he controlled he would drug and sexually assault them. If they dared go to the police, who would believe them? He was America’s Dad after all.
Cosby left a group of shattered young girls and women in his wake. For years each though they were the only one - but when they all started coming forward, there were stunning similarities in their stories, though none of them knew each other. Many said they were drugged and assaulted at the Elvis Presley Suite at the Las Vegas Hilton, where Cosby stayed while performing in town. Others were at a home in Reno, Nevada owned by the owner of a casino where Cosby frequently headlined.
However it was the alleged incident at Cosby’s own Pennsylvania mansion that exposed his double life when it came to light in 2005. Andrea Constand had met him in late 2002. She was director of operations for Temple University's women's basketball team. Cosby, an alumnus, was on the Board of Trustees and close to Constand's boss, Dawn Staley, who'd recruited her for the job. He became her mentor and her friend, and, in January 2004, he betrayed her trust by drugging and sexually assaulting her at his home outside Philadelphia.
It took Constand a year to muster the courage to go to the police. She had no idea there were others like her out there until Tamara Green, a lawyer in California, heard snippets from a news conference about the case. Listening to Bruce Castor, the Montgomery County District Attorney (who would later earn global notoriety as one of the impeachment defence lawyers for Donald Trump), Green sensed that he had no intention of charging the comedian.So she decided to share her own story of being drugged and sexually assaulted by Cosby in around 1970, hoping it would buttress Constand’s claims.
Green gave me an exclusive interview and then went on a media blitz, bringing forth twelve more women who contacted Constand's lawyers and Castor's office saying that Cosby had done the same thing to them. They were willing to testify as supporting witnesses if Cosby was arrested and, when Constand filed her civil lawsuit against Cosby, they became supporting witnesses, known only as Jane Does one through twelve.
I broke story after story about the evidence supporting Constand's claims, but Castor abruptly closed the case less than a month after he'd opened it, surprising even his own detectives. He announced his decision in a press release that he not only wrote himself but faxed to the media. He didn’t bother to let Constand or her attorneys, Dolores Troiani and Bebe Kivitz, know. They found out from a reporter.
So, yes, I'd seen Cosby escape justice before, which is why no one was more surprised than me when Constand's case was reopened in the summer of 2015. All told there are now more than 60 known alleged victims of Cosby but only Constand's case was still within the statute of limitations.
I broke the story of his arrest on December 30, 2015, still finding it hard to believe it was finally happening, after all of these years. After his first trial ended in a mistrial I was shocked again when Cosby was convicted in April 2018 and then actually sentenced to a prison term in September 2018. I thought for sure he'd use his wealth, power and high-priced attorneys to get house arrest. Cosby was clearly not expecting it either. I’ll never forget the way he exploded in court after the guilty verdict, calling Kevin Steele, the Montgomery County District Attorney who prosecuted his case, an asshole.
I knew he’d appeal because I knew he’d never give up until he won. But I also knew that even if he did prevail, he would face a third trial, not be instantly freed. Because that’s how it normally works here.
Last year, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court agreed to hear his appeal on two issues: whether or not the five other accusers who appeared as so-called 404b witnesses at his trial should have been allowed to testify and whether or not the press release that Castor wrote in 2005 was an immunity agreement, an audacious claim Castor first made after the case exploded again a decade later.
I thought that the first argument might prove successful. I honestly didn't take the other one seriously. It was ridiculous. Under Pennsylvania law, immunity agreements are supposed to be signed off by a judge, not faxed to the news media or whispered to a suspect. This is in large part to prevent just what is now happening: wealthy and powerful people getting preferential treatment. But, as Castor famously said when he testified for Cosby's defence at a hearing in 2016, as the "sovereign" of Montgomery County, he had the power to do so. It was such a preposterous argument that my jaw practically dropped when I heard him say it. Apparently, the judge thought so too because he ruled Castor wasn't credible and denied Cosby's motion to dismiss the criminal charges based on that claim.
So when this so-called promise not to prosecute, of which there is absolutely no proof, ended up being the grounds that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court used to free Cosby this week, and not only that, bar him from being tried a third time and order his immediate release, it was surreal. It felt like, once again, Cosby had somehow managed to circumvent the justice system. Just like in 2005.
The ruling baffled legal experts too.
"This was an extraordinary decision," said Dennis McAndrews, a prominent former Pennsylvania prosecutor. "To discharge a defendant based on so vague a statement by a former prosecutor that charges would not be brought is something unprecedented in my opinion."
Wesley Oliver, a Pennsylvania law professor who has followed the Cosby case closely over the years, agreed.
"To my knowledge, no court in the United States has previously concluded that a prosecutor's statement that it is not going to prosecute permanently precludes that prosecutor, or any other prosecutor, from bringing charges against a defendant," he said.
You can already see the ripple effect of Castor's actions. On Friday, July 2, Ghislaine Maxwell's attorneys wrote a letter to the federal judge overseeing her prosecution, arguing that she, too, should be released from prison and have the charges against her dismissed because she had been immunized under Jeffrey Epstein's 2007 non-prosecution agreement (though that, at least, was an actual court document signed off on by a judge.)
Since his release, Cosby has been publicly proclaiming his innocence while exhibiting some alarming behaviour (he conducted an off-camera interview with a female CBS reporter while lying in his bed) and plotting a comeback. Andrew Wyatt, his spokesman, told reporters that Cosby is planning a national tour to share his story and has both a documentary and a book coming out soon.
It remains to be seen what type of reception he’ll get but I can't imagine how difficult it's going to be for his victims to see his face plastered across television screens and magazine and newspapers pages while he's promoting his various projects.
I just hope no woman is foolish enough to be alone with him.
Because really, he's no Dr. Huxtable.
Nicki Weisensee Egan is the author of the book CHASING COSBY, host and Executive Producer of the podcast based on the book, coauthor of VICTIM F, and an investigative journalist. For more about her go to https://www.nicoleweisenseeegan.com/.