Five Additional Cosby Accusers May Testify at Retrial
A judge ruled that five of Bill Cosby's accusers may testify in addition to Andrea Constand.
March 15, 2018 at 06:00 PM
3 minute read
With jury selection just two weeks away, Bill Cosby's retrial is already shaping up to be far from a rerun of his first criminal trial.
A Pennsylvania judge ruled March 15 that he will allow witness testimony from five women other than complainant Andrea Constand who have accused Cosby of assaulting them. At the first trial last year, the same judge allowed just one alleged victim to testify in addition to Constand.
In an order March 15, Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas Judge Steven T. O'Neill said prosecutors may choose five women to testify at Cosby's retrial, out of a group of eight he designated. Prosecutors had put forward 19 potential prior bad acts witnesses, all of whom have alleged that Cosby drugged and sexually assaulted them.
The women O'Neill put forward as possible witnesses have made the most recent allegations against Cosby. The alleged assaults all took place between 1982 and 1996. One of the eight is Kelley Johnson, who testified at Cosby's trial in June 2017 that he assaulted her in 1996.
In his order, O'Neill cited Commonwealth v. Hicks, which said that a trial court can determine how many prior bad acts witnesses may testify in a criminal case, but cannot select which witnesses the prosecutors will be allowed to present.
Leading up to Cosby's first trial, prosecutors had presented 13 of Cosby's accusers as potential prior bad acts witnesses. O'Neill only allowed one of them, Johnson, to testify.
The Montgomery County District Attorney's Office presented those same 13 accusers as potential witnesses in the retrial, along with six others. Of the eight O'Neill is allowing prosecutors to choose from, six were included in the prosecution's motion in the first trial.
O'Neill identified the witnesses by number—CPBA 2-12 through CPBA 2-19—as they were listed by the prosecutors. CPBA 2-13 and 2-17, who alleged assaults in 1982 and 1986, respectively, were not part of the group of 13 presented to the court before the first trial.
Reached for comment March 15, the District Attorney's Office did not indicate that it had selected which witnesses to call at the retrial.
“We're reviewing the judge's order and we'll be making some determinations,” District Attorney Kevin Steele said in a statement.
In an email March 15, Andrew Wyatt, a spokesman for Cosby and his legal team, said the prosecutors' presentation of the other accusers “shows how desperate they are and that this is a very weak case.” He added, “Mr. Cosby is innocent of these charges.”
Separately this week, the California Supreme Court on Wednesday denied Cosby's petition for review in a defamation case brought by Janice Dickinson, who has also accused Cosby of sexual assault. A lower appellate court had revived Dickinson's claims against Cosby in November.
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