Bill Cosby's lawyers filed a list of nearly a dozen alleged trial errors Tuesday as they appeal his sexual assault conviction and three- to 10-year prison term.
The defense asked to have the 81-year-old disgraced comedian released from a suburban Philadelphia prison while his appeal proceeds, but their pleas have so far been rejected.
The lawyers said trial Judge Steven O'Neill had an alleged feud with a pretrial witness, the ex-prosecutor who had declined to charge Cosby a decade earlier. And they said his decisions to preside over the case, let five other accusers testify, air Cosby's prior deposition testimony about quaaludes and dismiss the ex-prosecutor's promise not to charge him are mistakes that warrant a new trial.
"The trial court erred in failing to disclose his bias against District Attorney (Bruce) Castor, and in failing to recuse himself, prior to determining (his) credibility," wrote lawyer Brian Perry of Harrisburg, the latest of more than a dozen lawyers to represent Cosby in the case.
A jury convicted Cosby at a spring retrial of drugging and molesting a Temple University employee in 2004, in what became the first celebrity trial of the #MeToo era.
Cosby — whose estimated fortune from his popular TV shows, comedy tours and product pitches once topped $400 million — was convicted of drugging and sexually assaulting accuser Andrea Constand. The entertainer, who is legally blind, spends his days in a one-man cell and private day room, in a new state prison about 20 miles from his sprawling estate near Philadelphia, where the crime occurred.
In a deposition in Constand's 2005 civil suit, Cosby called the 2004 encounter consensual and his feelings for her romantic. Constand considered him a mentor with close ties to her boss at Temple, where she worked for the women's basketball team. She was about 30 and Cosby, a Temple trustee, about 66. The key issues raised on appeal Tuesday include:
The Other Accusers
Legal experts believe Cosby's best shot on appeal may be the judge's decision, without comment, to hear from five other accusers when he'd allowed just one at Cosby's first trial in 2017, when the jury deadlocked. The law permits "prior bad act" witnesses only in very limited circumstances, usually to show a "signature" crime pattern. In Cosby's case, all five women said they thought they'd been drugged and molested. The defense called their testimony "too remote in time" and "too dissimilar" to Constand's accusation.
The Judge, the 'Agreement'
As Cosby's sentencing neared, his wife Camille filed an ethics complaint against O'Neill over his supposed feud with Castor, who had declined to charge Cosby in 2005 and said he'd made a binding "agreement" that Cosby would never be charged. Castor became a key pretrial witness for the defense. But O'Neill found no evidence his decision was binding on his successors.
Deposition Testimony, Quaaludes
The judge allowed prosecutors to use several excerpts from Cosby's damaging deposition in Constand's related 2005 lawsuit, which ended with Cosby paying Constand a $3.4 million settlement. Juror Harrison Snyder later told ABC-TV the deposition — in which Cosby admitted getting Quaaludes to give women before sex — was the key evidence that made him think he was guilty.
'Sexually Violent Predator'
Cosby, once revered as "America's Dad" for playing the beloved Dr. Cliff Huxtable on "The Cosby Show," could spend a decade in prison, given the way O'Neill fashioned his sentence. The three-year minimum appears well within the 1- to 4-year state guidelines. But O'Neill attached an unusual 10-year maximum, which could keep Cosby from getting parole unless he acknowledges his sexual offenses and completes sex-offender therapy. O'Neill, based in part on expert testimony about other accusers, judged Cosby a "sexually violent predator" and said his wealth and power made it possible he could still reoffend. The label makes Cosby subject to police registration and community alerts should he be released from prison.
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A Ukrainian court on Friday ordered the detention of the country’s farm minister in the latest high-profile corruption investigation, while Kyiv security officials assessed how they can recover lost battlefield momentum in the war against Russia.
Ukraine’s High Anti-Corruption Court ruled that Agriculture Minister Oleksandr Solskyi should be held in custody for 60 days, but he was released after paying bail of 75 million hryvnias ($1.77 million), a statement said.
Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau suspects Solskyi headed an organized crime group that between 2017 and 2021 unlawfully obtained land worth 291 million hryvnias ($6.85 million) and attempted to obtain other land worth 190 million hryvnias ($4.47 million).
Ukraine is trying to root out corruption that has long dogged the country. A dragnet over the past two years has seen Ukraine’s defense minister, top prosecutor, intelligence chief and other senior officials lose their jobs.
That has caused embarrassment and unease as Ukraine receives tens of billions of dollars in foreign aid to help fight Russia’s army, and the European Union and NATO have demanded widespread anti-graft measures before Kyiv can realize its ambition of joining the blocs.
In Ukraine's capital, doctors and ambulance crews evacuated patients from a children’s hospital on Friday after a video circulated online saying Russia planned to attack it.
Parents hefting bags of clothes, toys and food carried toddlers and led young children from the Kyiv City Children’s Hospital No. 1 on the outskirts of the city. Medics helped them into a fleet of waiting ambulances to be transported to other facilities.
In the video, a security official from Russian ally Belarus alleged that military personnel were based in the hospital. Kyiv city authorities said that the claim was “a lie and provocation.”
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said that civic authorities were awaiting an assessment from security services before deciding when it was safe to reopen the hospital.
“We cannot risk the lives of our children,” he said.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was due to hold online talks Friday with the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, which has been the key international organization coordinating the delivery of weapons and other aid to Ukraine.
Zelenskyy said late Thursday that the meeting would discuss how to turn around Ukraine’s fortunes on the battlefield. The Kremlin’s forces have gained an edge over Kyiv’s army in recent months as Ukraine grappled with a shortage of ammunition and troops.
Russia, despite sustaining high losses, has been taking control of small settlements as part of its effort to drive deeper into eastern Ukraine after capturing the city of Avdiivka in February, the U.K. defense ministry said Friday.
It’s been slow going for the Kremlin’s troops in eastern Ukraine and is likely to stay that way, according to the Institute for the Study of War. However, the key hilltop town of Chasiv Yar is vulnerable to the Russian onslaught, which is using glide bombs — powerful Soviet-era weapons that were originally unguided but have been retrofitted with a navigational targeting system — that obliterate targets.
“Russian forces do pose a credible threat of seizing Chasiv Yar, although they may not be able to do so rapidly,” the Washington-based think tank said late Thursday.
It added that Russian commanders are likely seeking to advance as much as possible before the arrival in the coming weeks and months of new U.S. military aid, which was held up for six months by political differences in Congress.
While that U.S. help wasn’t forthcoming, Ukraine’s European partners didn’t pick up the slack, according to German’s Kiel Institute for the World Economy, which tracks Ukraine support.
“The European aid in recent months is nowhere near enough to fill the gap left by the lack of U.S. assistance, particularly in the area of ammunition and artillery shells,” it said in a report Thursday.
Ukraine is making a broad effort to take back the initiative in the war after more than two years of fighting. It plans to manufacture more of its own weapons in the future, and is clamping down on young people avoiding conscription, though it will take time to process and train any new recruits.
Jill Lawless contributed to this report.
Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
Ukrainian young acting student Gleb Batonskiy plays piano in a public park in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, April 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
