The Supreme Court has declined a request to review a decision made by Pennsylvania’s highest court to overturn Bill Cosby’s conviction.
Prosecutors’ requested to hear the case and reinstate Cosby’s conviction. In 2018, Cosby was convicted of aggravated indecent assault for drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand in his Pennsylvania home in 2004.
The comedian was sentenced to three to 10 years in a state prison.
Last June, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that Cosby should not have faced charges because Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce Castor had promised him immunity from prosecution in 2005. Cosby has served less than three years in prison.
Constand called the decision “not only disappointing but of concern because it may discourage those who seek justice for sexual assault in the criminal justice system from reporting or participating in the prosecution of the assailant.”
District Attorney Kevin Steele said in a statement that Cosby “was found guilty by a jury and now goes free on a procedural issue that is irrelevant to the facts of the crime.”
Despite Cosby’s freedom hinging on a technicality, his team is celebrating the win.
“Mr. Cosby’s Constitutional Rights were a ‘reprehensible bait and switch’ by Kevin Steele, Judge Steve T. O’Neill and their cohorts,” Cosby’s publicist Andrew Wyatt said in a statement. “This is truly a victory for Mr. Cosby but it shows that cheating will never get you far in life and the corruption that lies within Montgomery County District’s Attorney Office has been brought to the center stage of the world.”
