*Bill Cosby, who is facing decades behind bars and being classified as a sexual predator, wants his criminal case reconsidered because of the judge’s alleged feud with the ex-DA.
In April, a jury returned guilty verdicts on three counts of aggravated indecent assault for 81-year-old Cosby’s sexual assault of Andrea Constand over 14 years ago.
According to Deadline, dozens of alleged victims of the actor are expected to speak at his September 24 sentencing hearing, but Cosby is hoping to thwart this move which is being orchestrated by the Montgomery County District Attorney.
The disgraced comedian and his legal team are also making another attempt to have the Pennsylvania judge who oversaw both the 2017 mistrial and this spring’s guilty verdict declaring retrial removed from the case.
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Cosby and his team believe an old personal dispute between former Montgomery County D.A. Bruce Castor clouds Judge O’Neil’s ability to “possibly be impartial” in the matter.
“Defendant respectfully requests that this Honorable Court disclose, on the record, the true facts of his interactions with Mr. Castor beginning with the 1998 prelude to the 1999 election campaign for District Attorney,” a motion filing from Cosby’s latest defense lawyer Joseph P. Green made public Tuesday says (read it here).
Judge O’Neill previously denied a motion for his recusal from the case by Cosby’s ex-lawyers. He also noted that the actor’s attorneys had failed to present evidence of bias on his part because of his wife’s involvement with an advocacy group for sexual assault victims, the report states.
But the case could hit a snag very soon if Camille Cosby has her way.
“That this judge would hide his bias and decide that his rival, the former D.A., could not be trusted to give truthful testimony, shows that the judge let his own personal feelings override Mr. Cosby’s right to a fair trial,” Mrs. Cosby said Tuesday. “If a judge would do this in a case as high-profile as this one, then he cannot be trusted to be a fair judge for anyone else either.”
Read Camille’s full statement below:
The right to a fair trial is universally regarded as a fundamental one, guaranteed both by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution and by Article 10 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In the United States, that right requires that judges be fair and impartial.
Bill Cosby was not afforded an impartial judge and he did not receive a fair trial. Instead, my husband was forced to go to trial before a judge, Steven T. O’Neill, who had a bitter, longstanding feud with one of the key witnesses in the case, Bruce Castor, the former District Attorney for Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. Mr. Castor testified under oath that when he was D.A. in 2006, he made a binding decision that because the evidence was weak, Mr. Cosby would never be prosecuted in this case, and that as a result of that decision, Mr. Cosby no longer had the right to remain silent and would be required to give a deposition in a civil lawsuit.
Incredibly, Judge O’Neill refused to believe the sworn testimony of the former DA. What Judge O’Neill failed to disclose but which has now come to light is that Judge O’Neill had a personal feud with Mr. Castor that started before Judge O’Neill became a judge. In 1999, Judge O’Neill and Mr. Castor ran against each other in the 1999 campaign to become D.A. At an important debate during the campaign, Mr. Castor, knowing that Judge O’Neill, while previously separated from his wife, had been in a romantic relationship with a female assistant D.A., ordered the assistant to appear at the debate to visibly show support for Mr. Castor. Embarrassed in this manner, Judge O’Neill performed poorly at the debate and withdrew from the race.
Mr. Castor went on to win the D.A. election and Judge O’Neill became a judge. In 2014, Kevin Steele beat Mr. Castor in an election and became D.A. Mr. Steele decided to prosecute Mr. Cosby, and Judge O’Neill was assigned to the case. Mr. Cosby filed a motion to dismiss because of the binding promise by the then D.A. not to prosecute. At a hearing, Mr. Castor testified under oath that the alleged victim had “ruined her credibility” with her own inconsistent statements and that an investigation had determined that the unproven accusations from other women were unreliable. Mr. Castor testified that as a result, he made a binding statement on behalf of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania not to prosecute Mr. Cosby.
Judge O’Neill refused to believe this sworn testimony by his rival, the former D.A., and denied the motion to dismiss.
The public, and Mr. Cosby, were entitled to know about Judge O’Neill’s bias before the judge made these rulings. That this judge would hide his bias and decide that his rival, the former D.A., could not be trusted to give truthful testimony, shows that the judge let his own personal feelings override Mr. Cosby’s right to a fair trial. If a judge would do this in a case as high-profile as this one, then he cannot be trusted to be a fair judge for anyone else either. Judge O’Neill must provide a full accounting of his bias against the former D.A., and correct the horrible injustice done to Mr. Cosby and to our system of justice.
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