Bill Cosby is attempting to have his conviction overturned.
On Aug. 11, 2020, Cosby’s lawyers appealed his conviction to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. The embattled celebrity’s lawyers believe that Cosby, 83, was not given a fair trial.
Cosby’s case centered around a deposition that he gave in 2004 in where he was promised by a district attorney that he would not be charged and the notes would be sealed. During the deposition, Cosby admitted to giving women Quaaludes in the 1970s as a party drug but denied giving an illegal substance to Andrea Constand when she visited him at his home in 2004.
Constand told authorities that she was sexually assaulted by Cosby, who denied all charges.
In the appeal, Cosby’s lawyers say that it was “fundamentally unfair” for the trial judge to allow Cosby’s deposition from a sex accuser’s lawsuit to be used against him at his criminal trial.
Although the evidence purportedly was allowed for a limited purpose, the prosecution’s closing argument shows that the jury was “urged to return a verdict against Cosby based on a depiction of him, unsupported by actual evidence, as a predator who drugged and raped women for decades,” Cosby’s appeal stated.
In Cosby’s 2018 trial, the judge unsealed the deposition and allowed jurors to hear portions of Cosby’s 2004 testimony. In the deposition, Cosby acknowledged giving Constand three pills, but he said the pills were an over-the-counter drug for pain and headaches. At some point during their 2004 meeting, Cosby and Constand had a sexual encounter. Cosby said it was consensual. Constand said it was not. The two continued to have a working relationship after the encounter until Constand sued Cosby and settled out of court.
Cosby is serving three to 10 years in prison after he was convicted in 2018.
