PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The U.S. Supreme Court will not take up the sexual assault case against comedian Bill Cosby, leaving in place a decision by Pennsylvania's highest court to throw out his aggravated indecent assault conviction and set him free from prison.
In September 2018, a jury found Cosby guilty of drugging and molesting Temple University employee Andrea Constand in 2004. A jury had previously deadlocked in Cosby's case, resulting in a mistrial in 2017.
In June 2021, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court threw out Cosby's conviction, saying the prosecutor who brought the case was bound by his predecessor's agreement not to charge Cosby. He was released from prison, and he returned to his home in Montgomery County.
The high court Monday declined prosecutors' request to hear the case and reinstate Cosby's conviction.
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The Supreme Court did not say anything in rejecting the case, merely listing it among others the court said it would not hear.
The 84-year-old Cosby became the first celebrity convicted of sexual assault in the #MeToo era. Cosby served nearly three years of his three- to 10-year sentence at SCI Phoenix in Montgomery County before the Pennsylvania high court ordered his release.
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At the time of Cosby's release, Bruce Castor, the afore-mentioned preceding prosecutor, said he believed the state Supreme Court “got it right.”
Meanwhile, Constand called Cosby's release a disappointment and a cause for concern for victims of sexual assault.
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“[The decision] may discourage those who seek justice for sexual assault in the criminal justice system from reporting or participating in the prosecution of the assailant or may force a victim to choose between filing either a criminal or civil action,” she wrote at the time.