Supreme Court won't review decision that freed Bill Cosby
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court quietly announced Monday that it would not review Bill Cosby's sexual assault case, leaving him a free man and ending a two-decade legal drama that shifted the cultural landscape, destroyed the groundbreaking Black actor’s reputation, and sent him to prison for several years late in life.
The high court, without comment, declined to review a stunning decision out of Pennsylvania that released Cosby from prison in June over the word of a former prosecutor who said he had made a secret promise to Cosby's lawyers that he would never be charged.
A Cosby spokesperson expressed “sincere gratitude to the justices” on behalf of Cosby and his family for the announcement and said he was the victim of “a reprehensible bait and switch” by the district attorney and judge in the case.
“This is truly a victory for Mr. Cosby, but it shows that cheating will never get you far in life," spokesperson Andrew Wyatt said in a statement, once again taking aim at the court officials in suburban Philadelphia, as he had throughout both criminal trials.
The 84-year-old Cosby, according to Wyatt, remains in good health despite being legally blind. “Many people are calling for projects for him,” and he is considering a final standup tour, Wyatt said.
District Attorney Kevin Steele in Pennsylvania's Montgomery County said that asking the high court to revive the case “was the right thing to do,” even if it was a long shot. He thanked accuser Andrea Constand for her courage and wished her well.
Constand and her lawyers, in a statement, called the decision an “unfortunate outcome for everyone, especially sexual assault survivors.” They noted that the existence of the agreement or promise was "vigorously disputed in the (court) habeus proceedings, and determined by the trial judge not to exist.”
Cosby never signed an immunity agreement in the case. And Steele's predecessor, Bruce L. Castor Jr., never put anything in writing or told anyone in his office about it. He never mentioned it in public until new evidence emerged and the case was reopened a decade later.
He said he had made the deal with a Cosby lawyer who was by then deceased.
“A secret agreement that permits a wealthy defendant to buy his way out of a criminal case isn’t right,” Steele argued in court in 2016 as he pressed to send the case to trial.
Montgomery County Judge Steven O'Neill found Castor’s testimony on the point not credible and sent the case to trial. However, the state Supreme Court later ruled that whether or not the supposed deal was ironclad, Cosby thought it was when he gave eye-popping — and potentially incriminating — testimony in a lawsuit later filed by Constand.
“The principle of fundamental fairness that undergirds due process of law in our criminal justice system demands that the promise be enforced,” Justice David N. Wecht wrote last year, ordering Cosby's immediate release after nearly three years in prison.
During the 2006 deposition, a seemingly free-wheeling Cosby gave long, stream-of-consciousness answers to questions from Constand’s lawyers. He detailed his sexual involvement with a string of young women, a few still in their teens, over the years. And he recalled giving several of them, including Constand, alcohol or pills while he remained sober.
“I don’t hear her say anything. And I don’t feel her say anything. And so I continue and I go into the area that is somewhere between permission and rejection. I am not stopped,” Cosby said in the deposition, describing a sexual encounter that came after he gave her three pills for stress, which she said knocked her out.
He was arrested in the Constand case on Dec. 30, 2015, just days before the 12-year statute of limitations expired. Steele had reopened the case after The Associated Press went to federal court to unseal Cosby’s long-buried testimony in Constand’s lawsuit.
Cosby, after giving four days of damaging testimony, had paid her $3.4 million to settle the case.
He went on trial in the criminal case in June 2017. The jury could not reach a verdict. Less than a year later — after media reports about media mogul Harvey Weinstein’s sexual abuse of women galvanized the #MeToo movement — a second jury convicted Cosby of drugging and molesting Constand.
The AP does not typically identify people who say they are victims of sexual assault unless they grant permission. Constand, now an advocate for sexual assault survivors, has done so.
Scores of women have come forward to say Cosby also sexually assaulted them, but Constand's is the only one that led to an arrest. His insurer, against Cosby’s wishes, settled a Massachusetts lawsuit involving seven accusers for an undisclosed amount after the 2018 conviction. At least two other lawsuits remain pending against the actor.
Castor, who said he made the deal with Cosby's lawyer, later represented former President Donald Trump at his second impeachment trial, at which Trump was acquitted of inciting the violent mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
Castor said he declined to arrest Cosby in 2005 based in part on his belief that both parties “could be held in less than a flattering light.” Constand later sued Castor for defamation and won a settlement from him. Castor countersued Constand, but the judge threw it out.
'Secrets of Playboy' looks at Bill Cosby's predatory behavior, Hugh Hefner friendship
Monday's Secrets of Playboy episode is all about purported predatory behavior at the Playboy Mansion involving Hugh Hefner's famous buddies: Bill Cosby, Roman Polanski and NFL legend Jim Brown.
Hefner and Cosby's decades-long friendship was well documented before the disgraced actor's reputation was tarnished in 2014 by dozens of sexual assault allegations. The Cosby Show star frequented the Playboy Mansion where multiple women claim they were drugged and raped.
"When the whole Cosby story broke ... none of that was a surprise," says Hefner's former bodyguard, Jim Ellis. "I was there, I saw — I know what he did."
Ellis was a member of Hefner's executive protection team in 1980 and 1981.
"Everybody that worked at the mansion knew that he was basically a predator," adds Ellis, claiming Cosby was at the mansion three to four times a week. "He wasn't there to eat lunch."
"Bunny mother" P.J. Masten says she "heard many stories about Bill Cosby from the '60s all the way up to 2008." Masten oversaw female employees at Playboy clubs in Chicago and Los Angeles from 1972 to 1982. She emotionally recalls her own alleged brutal attack in the episode, claiming Cosby drugged, raped and sodomized her in Chicago in 1979. After the alleged rape, Masten says Cosby sent her "a 4-foot ficus tree." She shows the note he sent along with it that read, "Stay healthy mentally, stay in charge of yourself."
Masten claims she told her boss about the attack, who replied, "That's Hefner's best friend. I suggest you shut your mouth if you wanna keep your job."
Monday's episode focuses on the death of former Playboy model Paige Young, who took her life in 1974. A suicide note purportedly listed men she felt abused by, including Hefner. Friends suspect she was raped by Cosby; however, there is no direct connection made between Cosby and Young's suicide.
Hefner's ex-girlfriend Sondra Theodore believes the publishing mogul was aware of what Cosby was doing at the mansion.
"Did Hef know? I think he did. How could anything be flipped under anyone's nose in that house. Cameras were everywhere. He had to have known," Theodore muses. "But Cosby was his go to celebrity ... because of that, he was allowing the women to be used."
(When contacted by Yahoo for comment on the episode, Cosby's rep pointed to a statement given earlier on Monday praising the Supreme Court's decision not to review the comedian's sexual assault case, which was overturned in 2021.)
Hefner's relationship with Cosby isn't the only one scrutinized. The docuseries also examines Hefner's close ties with director Roman Polanski, who raped a 13-year-old girl in 1977. Former Playboy model Charlotte Lewis claims in the episode she was raped by Polansky at age 16.
Theodore alleges she overheard Hefner and his friends brushing off Polansky's behavior, simply remarking about how "that schmo got caught."
"They were just relieved they hadn't gotten caught," Theodore says.
Horrific assault claims are levied against athlete and actor Jim Brown, who has a decades-long history of violence against women.
"Jim Brown could come up and have sex at the mansion and he always abused different Playmates. I observed it, many people witnessed it," claims Stefan Tetenbaum, who worked as Hefner's valet from 1978 to 1981. Brown allegedly "cracked ribs," dislocated women's jaws and "brutalized girls."
"Hef did tell me that Jim Brown brutalized women," claims Theodore. "But why would [Hef] keep letting him come up? What's with that? Because he was a celebrity."
Secrets of Playboy airs Monday's on A&E
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