The leading parents on The Cosby Show are celebrating the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision to vacate Bill Cosby’s sexual assault conviction.
Cosby’s sentence was vacated by the state’s highest court 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. He had been in year two of serving a three-to-10-year sentence after being found guilty of sexually assaulting Andrea Constand in 2004.
“FINALLY!!!! A terrible wrong is being righted- a miscarriage of justice is corrected!” said Phylicia Rashad, who played Clair Huxtable, Cosby’s wife on The Cosby Show.
BILL COSBY SEXUAL ASSAULT CONVICTION VACATED BY PENNSYLVANIA SUPREME COURT
At the time Constand reported the alleged incident in 2005, then-Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce Castor agreed not to charge him so the accuser could 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 did so after Castor said he would not be criminally prosecuted.
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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 used the sworn inculpatory evidence at the criminal trial.
Cosby and Constand settled the civil suit for $3.38 million.
