Howard University tried to distance itself from a statement made by Dean Phylicia Rashad, who has a long-standing relationship with Bill Cosby, for celebrating the news of his release from prison over a previously made prosecutorial agreement.
After news surfaced that Cosby’s sentence for allegedly sexually assaulting a woman years earlier would be vacated, Rashad, who played Clair Huxtable, Cosby’s wife on The Cosby Show, tweeted, “FINALLY!!!! A terrible wrong is being righted- a miscarriage of justice is corrected!”
Her tweet, which has been deleted, “lacked sensitivity toward survivors of sexual assault,” the university said. Rashad is the dean of its College of Fine Arts.
BILL COSBY SEXUAL ASSAULT CONVICTION VACATED BY PENNSYLVANIA SUPREME COURT
“I fully support survivors of sexual assault coming forward,” Rashad said in a subsequent post. “My post was in no way intended to be insensitive to their truth. Personally, I know from friends and family that such abuse has lifelong residual effects. My heartfelt wish is for healing.”
— Howard University (@HowardU) July 1, 2021
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court vacated Cosby’s sentence on Wednesday after it ruled a previous agreement between Cosby and the then-district attorney prevented the subsequent district attorney from proceeding with criminal charges.
At the time of his Wednesday release, he was in his second year of serving a sentence of three to 10 years after being found guilty of sexually assaulting Andrea Constand in 2004.
At the time that Constand reported the alleged incident in 2005, then-Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce Castor agreed not to charge him with the belief that he wouldn’t get a conviction. It allowed the accuser to file a civil lawsuit against him, which could force Cosby to testify, under penalty of perjury, without the benefit of being allowed to invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
He provided four sworn depositions in which he “made several incriminating statements,” but the agreement not to charge him criminally had already been made. The civil suit was settled for $3.38 million.
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His successor in the district attorney’s office, Rita Ferman, who is now a judge, “did not feel bound by his decision and decided to prosecute Cosby notwithstanding that prior undertaking,” and she used the sworn inculpatory evidence at the criminal trial in which he was convicted.
