PHILADELPHIA (AP) – Suburban prosecutors on Tuesday accused Bill Cosby’s “cadre of high-priced lawyers” of stretching the truth as they try again to get a sexual-assault case against him thrown out.
The two sides have filed dueling legal briefs before a key pretrial hearing next month. The Nov. 1 hearing could determine if the case moves forward, if more accusers testify and whether jurors can hear Cosby’s prior testimony about giving women drugs and alcohol before trying to have sex with them.
Cosby’s lawyers complain it’s unfair to make him defend events from a 2004 sexual encounter. They have argued Cosby, who’s 79 years old and blind, can’t recognize his accusers or even remember if he’s ever met them.
However, Montgomery County prosecutors argued on Tuesday that Cosby, once known as America’s Dad for his beloved portrayal of Dr. Cliff Huxtable on his top-ranked “The Cosby Show” in the 1980s and ’90s, used his fame and fortune “to conceal his crimes” for years.
They said they reopened the case last year because they had new evidence from a long-sealed Cosby deposition from the accuser’s 2006 civil lawsuit and from the dozens of other accusers who came forward after the deposition was released.