Bill Cosby
NORRISTOWN, Pa. (AP) — Jurors in Bill Cosby’s sex assault retrial won’t hear why the case was initially dropped four weeks after his accuser came forward in 2005.
Judge Steven O’Neill sided with prosecutors Friday in ruling that ex-District Attorney Bruce Castor’s opinions are irrelevant.
O’Neill also barred mention of a 2015 election that Castor lost to current DA Kevin Steele, whose ads criticized him for not charging Cosby.
Opening statements in Cosby’s retrial start Monday.
Castor wrote in a 2005 press release that the case was too flawed and that both Cosby and accuser Andrea Constand could be portrayed “in a less than flattering light.”
His successors reopened it in 2015 after Cosby’s decade-old testimony from Constand’s civil suit was unsealed.
The Associated Press does not typically identify people who say they are victims of sexual assault unless they grant permission, which Constand has done.
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(AP Photo/Chris Szagola)
