#Bill Cosby Wins Appeal for Sexual Assault Charges in Pennsylvania

After serving time in prison for rape charges since 2018, Bill Cosby will have another opportunity to fight the allegations against him in court. As of this writing, Cosby has served nearly two years of a 10-year sentence in prison after he was criminally charged with accusations of drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand at his home in 2004. This week, Cosby caught a small break when the Pennsylvania Supreme Court granted his appeal to the conviction, but the former Jell-o pitchman isn’t quite a free man just yet.

According to reports, the Supreme Court will review Cosby’s 2018 trial after accepting the arguments made by his legal team. This includes the court considering whether jurors should have been permitted to hear the testimony of five other Cosby accusers when he was only being tried for allegedly drugging and sexually assaulting Constand. Also under scrutiny is whether Cosby’s deposition from a separate civil case, where he speaks about his alleged use of quaaludes with sexual partners, as Cosby’s lawyers say he was promised criminal immunity in the case.

In response to the news, Constand took to Twitter to release a statement, revealing her thoughts on Cosby winning this small legal battle in his quest to get back out of prison. “While everyone deserves their cries and appeals to be heard, even convicted criminals, if anyone’s cries matter most right now, it’s the women who have lifted their voices and have selflessly put themselves in harm’s way, such as prior bad act witnesses in my case,” Constand’s statement reads in part. She also respectfully asks for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to “consider the enormous prospect of putting my perpetrator back into the community after being labelled a convicted sexually violent predator who has shown no remorse for his actions.”

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— Andrea Constand (@ConstandAndrea) June 23, 2020

Meanwhile, Cosby has steadfastly maintained his innocence from behind bars and has referred to himself as a political prisoner. “As we have all stated, the false conviction of Bill Cosby is so much bigger than him – it’s about the destruction of ALL Black people and people of color in America,” a statement from Cosby’s legal team reads.

Cosby’s wife, Camille Cosby, also applauded the court’s decision while also suggesting he was falsely accused. “The #MeToo movement and movements like them have intentional ignorance pertaining to the history of particular white women – not all white women – but particular white women, who have from the very beginning, pertaining to the enslavement of African people, accused black males of sexual assault without any proof whatsoever, no proof, anywhere on the face of the earth,” Camille told ABC News.

It remains to be seen if the appeal will actually get Cosby out of prison, but even with this victory, the odds still seem to be against Cosby going free. The Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office says they’re confident that “previous decisions dismissing these appeals will be upheld.” You can also expect there to be a lot of civil unrest in the event Cosby does end up walking. In any case, we’ll have to just wait to see how it plays out. Details of this story come to us from CBS and ABC.

Topics: Sexual Misconduct