Bill Cosby’s appeal of his conviction for sexual assault is expected to focus on a Pennsylvania judge’s decision to allow several accusers to testify against him, but his challenge faces significant hurdles, according to legal experts.
The disgraced comedian’s first trial hinged largely on the credibility of a single woman, his one-time friend Andrea Constand, who said he drugged and sexually assaulted her in 2004, and ended in a hung jury.
At his second trial in April, Montgomery County Judge Steven O’Neill allowed the jury to hear five other women with strikingly similar stories of sexual abuse. Cosby was found guilty and on Tuesday was sentenced to up to 10 years in prison.
Cosby’s lawyers face a difficult burden in convincing an appellate court to second-guess O’Neill’s decision, experts told Reuters.
“I don’t think that they have any significant likelihood of winning this appeal,” said Michelle Dempsey, a law professor at Villanova University in Philadelphia. “The evidence was solid, and the standard in Pennsylvania is clear.”
Other potential appeals grounds include the decade-plus gap between the crime and Cosby’s arrest, claims of bias against the trial judge and an alleged promise by a former district attorney not to prosecute Cosby for the Constand incident.
Cosby, once known as “America’s Dad” for his role as the beloved patriarch of the Huxtable family on the 1980s television comedy “The Cosby Show,” has been accused by more than 50 women of sexual abuse dating back decades. Only Constand’s allegations were recent enough to lead to criminal prosecution.
He was given a minimum of three years in prison on Tuesday and immediately taken in handcuffs to the county jail. His lawyers are expected to ask an appellate court to free him on bail while his appeal is pending.
A lawyer and a spokesman for Cosby did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.
