Legendary comedian Bill Cosby is on the search for a new lead attorney after his top-notch Philadelphia lawyer — and former attorney of the year —Brian McMonagle suddenly quit this week. Cosby is being retried this fall for allegedly drugging and raping a Temple University employee at his mansion.
“Brian cares, but he’s not going to continue to put his stellar reputation on the line if there’s no cooperation from his client and his client’s publicist,” a source said, according to RadarOnline.com.
On top of everything else, the disgraced “Cosby Show” star has forbidden anyone in his inner circle from making any public statements.
According to a source who spoke with Radar, Cosby has already contacted Michael Jackson’s former attorney Tom Meserau, as well as O.J. Simpson’s ex-attorney Robert Shapiro and Lindsay Lohan‘s former lawyer Shawn Chapman-Holley to replace McMonagle.
McMonagle’s fee was a whopping $1,200-$1,500 an hour. But this has not been enough to attract some of the nation’s other renowned celebrity lawyers to join the team.
McMonagle was named Philadelphia’s Best Criminal Lawyer in 2015.
He guided Cosby to a mistrial in the Andrea Constand case. But he could no longer put up with “Team Chaos” surrounding the comedian, the source says.
“He had to chastise Cosby’s publicist, Andrew Wyatt, in front of reporters, because he’d hold press conferences while the jury was deliberating and he’d give mixed messages,” a source claimed.
According to another source, Wyatt had been controlling Cosby’s case entirely, even firing his previous lawyer Monica Pressley after she made various media appearances “without the team’s permission.”
When Judge Steven O’Neill declared a mistrial last month, Cosby’s publicist ripped the judge and accused O’Neill of working with prosecutors to convict Cosby.
McMonagle was livid at the publicist’s rash behavior in court and demanded Cosby ask him to not get in the way during the retrial.
Cosby and Wyatt reportedly both mocked the lawyer and refused to commit to playing by his rules. According to sources, this chaos and disrespect are what led McMonagle to quit.
“He may wait and give Cosby a chance to find a new attorney before formally announcing it,” the source said. “But, come November, it won’t be Brian giving opening statements again. Brian will be with another client somewhere,” added the source.
He is expected to notify O’Neill of his resignation this week.
Cosby, 79, faces charges that he allegedly drugged and assaulted Temple University employee Andrea Constand in his Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, mansion in 2004.
