PHILADELPHIA — The Pennsylvania Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to review two aspects of the case that led to Bill Cosby’s 2018 conviction on sexual assault charges, delivering the 82-year-old comedian a long-sought chance to overturn his conviction.
Specifically, the court said it was interested in the decision by the judge overseeing the case to allow prosecutors to call as witnesses five other accusers — whose allegations fell outside of the criminal statute of limitations — to bolster the account of central accuser Andrea Constand.
The judges also said they would consider arguments by Cosby’s lawyers that that he never should have been prosecuted in the first place because he purportedly made a deal with a former district attorney — that was never memorialized in writing — that he would never be charged if he sat for a deposition in a civil case Constand had filed against him.
That deposition, in which Cosby discussed his use of drugs in previous sexual encounters with women, was later used against him at his 2018 at trial.
Cosby — who was convicted for the 2004 assault of Constand, a Temple University employee — remains incarcerated at SCI Phoenix in Montgomery County, where he is serving three- to 10-year sentence.
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