Bill Cosby’s 2004 Rape Trial Expected To Last Two Weeks; Faces Decade Behind Bars

Bill Cosby’s June 5 starting trial that could see him behind bars for up to a decade for the alleged 2004 sexual assault of a then-Temple University employee is expected to last about two weeks, a Pennsylvania judge announced today.

The declaration by Judge Steven O’Neill came at the beginning of a hearing Monday that saw Cosby back in court trying to limit what a jury in the case may or may not hear of his past familiarity with date rape drugs The evidence the 79-year old actor’s lawyers want left out of the trial include excepts from books Cosby has penned and Larry King interviews he has given mentioning “Spanish Fly” and a damning 2005 civil case deposition that was made public in 2015 that revealed he used prescription drugs for having sex with women.
© Provided by Deadline
Despite over 60 women having now gone public in the past two years with their own stories of assault by The Cosby Show creator, the Keystone State case is the only criminal case against Bill Cosby. The actor was charged in the closing days of 2106 just before Pennsylvania’s 12-year statute of limitations on sex crimes expired. He was arraigned December 30 that year and released on $1 million bail without entering a plea. In the subsequent months, Cosby and his somewhat revolving door of attorneys have tried a variety of methods and jurisdictions to get the case dismissed – none ultimately successful obviously.

Accompanied by an entourage of attorneys and aides, the actor arrived just before 9 AM ET on Monday at the Norristown, PA courthouse in suburban Philadelphia. Charged with three felony charges of second-degree aggravated indecent assault against Andrea Constand over 12-years ago, the accused is required by state law to appear at all the hearings in the matter – as Cosby has done.

Today’s hearing comes after a rare partial victory for Cosby in the controversial case as Judge O’Neill late in February granted the actor’s request to have jury members brought in from other jurisdictions for the trial. However, at the same February 24 hearing, the state judge rejected the insistence by Cosby’s team that they get a change of venue of their liking.

That mixed result followed a much clearer win for Cosby when on February 24, Judge O’Neill ordered that the actor only has to face testimony from one other woman who says he also assaulted her. Local D.A. Kevin Steele’s office had wanted a total of 13 other alleged Cosby victims to be able to take the stand with Constand to display the actor’s pattern of “prior bad acts.”

Mark Dent contributed to this report.