Bill Cosby freed from prison, his sexual assault conviction overturned

Pennsylvania’s highest court threw out Bill Cosby’s sexual assault conviction and released him from prison Wednesday in a stunning reversal of fortune for the comedian once known as “America’s Dad,” ruling that the prosecutor who brought the case was bound by his predecessor’s agreement not to charge Cosby.

FILE – In this April 26, 2018 file photo, actor and comedian Bill Cosby departs the courthouse after he was found guilty in his sexual assault retrial, at the Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown, Pa. Pennsylvania’s highest court has overturned comedian Bill Cosby’s sex assault conviction. The court said Wednesday that they found an agreement with a previous prosecutor prevented him from being charged in the case. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum, File)

Cosby, 83, had served nearly three years of a three- to 10-year sentence after being found guilty of drugging and violating Temple University sports administrator Andrea Constand at his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004. He was the first celebrity tried and convicted in the #MeToo era.

© Provided by Associated Press FILE – In this Sept. 24, 2018 file photo, Bill Cosby arrives for his sentencing hearing at the Montgomery County Courthouse, in Norristown, Pa. Pennsylvania’s highest court has overturned comedian Bill Cosby’s sex assault conviction. The court said Wednesday that they found an agreement with a previous prosecutor prevented him from being charged in the case. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum, File)

The former “Cosby Show” star was arrested in 2015, when a district attorney armed with newly unsealed evidence — the comic’s damaging deposition in a lawsuit filed by Constand — brought charges against him days before the 12-year statute of limitations was about to run out.

FILE – Bill Cosby accuser Andrea Constand, center, and supporters embrace after Cosby was found guilty in his sexual assault retrial at the Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown, Pa. on April, 26, 2018. Pennsylvania’s highest court has overturned comedian Cosby’s sex assault conviction. The court said Wednesday, June 30, 2021, that they found an agreement with a previous prosecutor prevented him from being charged in the case. (Mark Makela/Pool Photo via AP, File)

But the Pennsylvania Supreme Court said Wednesday that District Attorney Kevin Steele, who made the decision to arrest Cosby, was obligated to stand by his predecessor’s promise not to charge Cosby, though there was no evidence that promise was ever put in writing.

Justice David Wecht, writing for a split court, said Cosby had relied on the former district attorney’s decision not to charge him when the comedian gave his potentially incriminating testimony in Constand’s civil case.

The court called Cosby’s subsequent arrest “an affront to fundamental fairness, particularly when it results in a criminal prosecution that was forgone for more than a decade.”

The justices said that overturning the conviction, and barring any further prosecution, “is the only remedy that comports with society’s reasonable expectations of its elected prosecutors and our criminal justice system.”

Security personnel are positioned at an entrance to the State Correctional Institution at Phoenix in Collegeville, Pa., Wednesday, June 30, 2021. Pennsylvania’s highest court has overturned comedian Bill Cosby’s sex assault conviction. The court said Wednesday, that they found an agreement with a previous prosecutor prevented him from being charged in the case. The 83-year-old Cosby has served more than two years at the state prison near Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

As Cosby was set free from the state prison in suburban Montgomery County, his appeals lawyer, Jennifer Bonjean, said Cosby should never have been prosecuted.

“District attorneys can’t change it up simply because of their political motivation,” she said, adding that Cosby remains in excellent health, apart from being legally blind.

In a statement, Steele said Cosby went free “on a procedural issue that is irrelevant to the facts of the crime.” He commended Constand for coming forward and added: “My hope is that this decision will not dampen the reporting of sexual assaults by victims. … We still believe that no one is above the law — including those who are rich, famous and powerful.”

A sign marks the State Correctional Institution at Phoenix in Collegeville, Pa., Wednesday, June 30, 2021. Pennsylvania’s highest court has overturned comedian Bill Cosby’s sex assault conviction. The court said Wednesday that they found an agreement with a previous prosecutor prevented him from being charged in the case. The 83-year-old Cosby has served more than two years at the state prison near Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

Constand and her lawyer did not immediately return messages seeking comment.

“FINALLY!!!! A terrible wrong is being righted — a miscarriage of justice is corrected!” the actor’s “Cosby Show” co-star Phylicia Rashad tweeted.

“I am furious to hear this news,” actor Amber Tamblyn, a founder of Time’s Up, an advocacy group for victims of sexual assault, said in a Twitter post. “I personally know women who this man drugged and raped while unconscious. Shame on the court and this decision.”

FILE – Bill Cosby departs in handcuffs to begin a three-to-10 year prison sentence for sexual assault after his sentencing hearing at the Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown, Pa., on Sept. 25, 2018. Pennsylvania’s highest court has overturned comedian Cosby’s sex assault conviction. The court said Wednesday, June 30, 2021, that they found an agreement with a previous prosecutor prevented him from being charged in the case. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum, File)

In sentencing Cosby, the trial judge had ruled him a sexually violent predator who could not be safely allowed out in public and needed to report to authorities for the rest of his life.

Four Supreme Court justices formed the majority that ruled in Cosby’s favor, while three others dissented in whole or in part.

Peter Goldberger, a suburban Philadelphia lawyer with an expertise in criminal appeals, said prosecutors could ask the Pennsylvania Supreme Court for reargument or reconsideration, but it would be a very long shot.

FILE – In this Sept. 24, 2018 file photo, accuser Andrea Constand returns to the courtroom during a lunch break at the sentencing hearing for Bill Cosby at the Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown, Pa. Pennsylvania’s highest court has overturned comedian Cosby’s sex assault conviction. The court said Wednesday, June 30, 2021, that they found an agreement with a previous prosecutor prevented him from being charged in the case. (David Maialetti/The Philadelphia Inquirer via AP, File)

“I can’t imagine that with such a lengthy opinion, with a thoughtful concurring opinion and a thoughtful dissenting opinion, that you could honestly say they made a simple mistake that would change their minds if they point it out to them,” Goldberger said.

Even though Cosby was charged only with the assault on Constand, the judge at his trial allowed five other accusers to testify that they, too, were similarly victimized by Cosby in the 1980s. Prosecutors called them as witnesses to establish what they said was a pattern of behavior on Cosby’s part.

FILE – Bill Cosby accuser Andrea Constand, left, embraces prosecutor Kristen Feden during a news conference after Cosby was found guilty in his sexual assault retrial in Norristown, Pa., on April 26, 2018. Pennsylvania’s highest court has overturned comedian Cosby’s sex assault conviction. The court said Wednesday, June 30, 2021, that they found an agreement with a previous prosecutor prevented him from being charged in the case. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum, File)

Cosby’s lawyers had argued on appeal that the use of the five additional accusers was improper.

But the Pennsylvania high court did not weigh in on the question, saying it was moot given the justices’ finding that Cosby should not have been prosecuted in the first place.

FILE – In this April 26, 2018, file photo, Bill Cosby, center, leaves the the Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown, Pa. Pennsylvania’s highest court has overturned comedian Bill Cosby’s sex assault conviction. The court said Wednesday that they found an agreement with a previous prosecutor prevented him from being charged in the case. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum, File)

In New York, the judge at last year’s trial of Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein, whose case helped sparked the #MeToo movement in 2017, let four other accusers testify. Weinstein was convicted and sentenced to 23 years in prison.

In May, Cosby was denied parole after refusing to participate in sex offender programs behind bars. He said he would resist the treatment programs and refuse to acknowledge wrongdoing even if it meant serving the full 10 years.

FILE – Bill Cosby gestures as he leaves the Montgomery County Courthouse on April 26, 2018, in Norristown, Pa., after he was convicted of drugging and molesting a woman in the first big celebrity trial of the #MeToo era. Pennsylvania’s highest court has overturned comedian Cosby’s sex assault conviction. The court said Wednesday, June 30, 2021, that they found an agreement with a previous prosecutor prevented him from being charged in the case. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum, File)

Prosecutors said Cosby repeatedly used his fame and family man persona to manipulate young women, holding himself out as a mentor before betraying them.

The groundbreaking Black actor grew up in public housing in Philadelphia and made a fortune estimated at $400 million during his 50 years in the entertainment industry that included the TV shows “I Spy,” “The Cosby Show” and “Fat Albert,” along with comedy albums and a multitude of television commercials.

The suburban Philadelphia prosecutor who originally looked into Constand’s allegations, Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce Castor, considered the case flawed because Constand waited a year to come forward and stayed in contact with Cosby afterward. Castor declined to prosecute and instead encouraged Constand to sue for damages.

Questioned under oath as part of that lawsuit, Cosby said he used to offer quaaludes to women he wanted to have sex with. He eventually settled with Constand for $3.4 million.

Portions of the deposition later became public at the request of The Associated Press and spelled Cosby’s downfall, opening the floodgates on accusations from other women and destroying the comic’s good-guy reputation and career. More than 60 women came forward to say Cosby violated them.

The AP does not typically identify sexual assault victims without their permission, which Constand has granted.

Cosby, in the deposition, acknowledged giving quaaludes to a 19-year-old woman before having sex with her at a Las Vegas hotel in 1976. Cosby called the encounter consensual.

On Wednesday, the woman, Therese Serignese, now 64, said the court ruling “takes my breath away.”

“I just think it’s a miscarriage of justice. This is about procedure. It’s not about the truth of the women,” she said. She said she took solace in the fact Cosby served nearly three years: “That’s as good as it gets in America” for sex crime victims, she said.

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 A film in which the text and subtext-an effortlessly gifted father presses his less-talented son to follow in his footsteps-are in perfect alignment. Alas, only in one of the two does the story end happily.

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Cypher Raige: Fear is not real. It is a product of thoughts you create. Now do not misunderstand me, danger is very real. But fear is a choice

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The original idea for the film was about a father and son on a camping trip. The son would've had to make his way through the forest to find help for the father after the car they were traveling in careened off the road. Realizing that the idea had greater potential, producer Will Smith and screenwriter Gary Whitta decided to adapt the basic survival concept into a much larger science-fiction project.

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A crash landing leaves teenager Kitai Raige (Jaden Smith) and his legendary father Cypher (Will Smith) stranded on Earth, 1,000 years after cataclysmic events forced humanity's escape. With Cypher critically injured, Kitai must embark on a perilous journey to signal for help, facing uncharted terrain, evolved animal species that now rule the planet, and an unstoppable alien creature that escaped during the crash. Father and son must learn to work together and trust one another if they want any chance of returning home.

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Movie Title: After Earth (2013)

Movie Streaming: Available

Runningtimes: 147 Minutes

Genres: Action , Adventure , Sci-Fi

Language: English

Country: USA
Opening: May 31, 2013

Staring: Will Smith, Jaden Smith , Isabelle Fuhrman, Zoë Kravitz, Kristofer Hivju, David Denman, Sophie Okonedo , Glenn Morshower , Lincoln Lewis, Faron Salisbury, Chris Geere, Sacha Dhawan, Jaden Martin, Jim Gunter, Jon Douglas Rainey

Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Studio: Columbia Pictures (Sony)
Imdb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1588173

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