PHILADELPHIA (AP) – Bill Cosby’s lawyers will argue Tuesday that prosecutors are reaching back to the “casting couch” era to round up women accusers and build a “stale” sexual assault case against the entertainer.
And they will take a Pennsylvania judge through a time warp to prove their point, challenging sexual misconduct claims that spanned the freewheeling 1960s, patriotic 1980s and gender-bending 21st century.
Prosecutors will ask the judge to let 13 other women testify at the scheduled June trial that they were drugged and molested by Cosby in a “signature” fashion.
However, defense lawyers note there’s little but hazy memories to go on. In a defense filing Monday, they said the women’s memories have been compromised by time and widespread media coverage of the case.
“The fact that even the most fervently held memoires can actually be tainted – or altogether false – is supported by a vast existing and growing body of science,” lawyers Brian McMonagle and Angela Agrusa wrote.