iStock/Thinkstock(NORRISTOWN, Penn.) — Bill Cosby has tapped Tom Mesereau, the attorney who helped Michael Jackson get acquitted of child molestation charges in 2005, to help him beat his retrial for the alleged 2004 sexual assault of Andrea Constand.
Cosby’s reps announced on Monday that former lawyers, Brian McMonagle and Angela Agrusa will exit the defense team in the actor’s criminal case, replaced by Mesereau, ex-federal prosecutor Kathleen Bliss and Philadelphia’s Sam Silver, according to Philly.com. Cosby also announced the new team, with fewer details, on Twitter.
McMonagle reportedly formally filed paperwork early this month to leave the revolving-door defense team, which also has included Marty Singer, former Assistant U. S. Attorney Christopher Tayback and Washington D.C-based Monique Pressley.
The announcement by Cosby and his reps came a day before a pretrial hearing is set to begin in Norristown, Pennsylvania Tuesday.
Cosby has always maintained that the encounter with the ex-Temple University employee was consensual, despite admitting in depositions more than a decade ago to giving Constand pills on the night of the alleged assault in his Philadelphia-area mansion nearly 13 years ago.
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