Home Q News Entertainment Bill Cosby Again Seeks to Have Indecent Assault Charge Dismissed

Bill Cosby Again Seeks to Have Indecent Assault Charge Dismissed

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Bill Cosby in a Dec. 30, 2015 booking photo released by the Cheltenham Township, PA Police Department(MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Penn.) — Attorneys for Bill Cosby on Wednesday filed a new petition seeking dismissal of the Pennsylvania criminal case against him.

In new paperwork obtained by ABC News, the comedian’s legal team asserted that the preliminary hearing last month “violated Mr. Cosby’s confrontation and due process rights” under the U.S. and Pennsylvania constitutions.

At the heart of the new motion is Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele’s decision to not call Cosby’s accuser, Andrea Constand, to testify during the preliminary hearing, instead relying on testimony from police officers who recounted the details of her statements to law enforcement.

“The District Attorney gave no explanation at all for Ms. Constand’s absence other than the purported legal right to shield her from cross-examination,” they argued in the motion.

Cosby’s motion seeks dismissal of the charge or, alternatively, a new preliminary hearing in which Constand would be required to testify and be subjected to cross-examination.

The motion also resurfaces the Cosby camp’s arguments that Steele has ignored the previous prosecutor’s pledge not to bring charges, and assails anew the 12-year delay in bringing the criminal case.

Last month, Cosby, 78, was ordered to stand trial in the indecent assault case that Steele brought against him last December. Constand, a former Temple University employee, has claimed that in 2004, the comedian drugged her and assaulted her at his home.

Cosby, whose lawyers have said that he will be vindicated in court, claimed that the two had consensual sexual relations and that the only drug he gave her was Benadryl.

His lawyers fought in a Pennsylvania Superior Court to have the case dismissed, claiming that Steele brought it “illegally, improperly and unethically.” They also sought to have Steele disqualified from the case, though both motions were denied.

After that, Cosby’s lawyers filed to have the case delayed, though that was also denied.

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