The last time they saw each other was roughly a decade ago.
He was among America’s most successful entertainers and her mentor.
She was a former young Temple University staff member who said he took advantage of his counseling role, gave her pills and sexually assaulted her in his home outside Philadelphia in 2004.
The setting for their last encounter was a deposition in a Philadelphia hotel, one that would ultimately lead to an out-of-court settlement in 2006 in a civil suit filed against Bill Cosby by his former mentee, Andrea Constand.
On Tuesday, Mr. Cosby and Ms. Constand may well see each other again, this time at a pretrial hearing in a Pennsylvania courthouse where Mr. Cosby, 78, is facing criminal charges filed by prosecutors who say the 2004 encounter was a case of criminal sexual assault.
At the hearing in the Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown, Pa., prosecutors will try to demonstrate for Judge Elizabeth A. McHugh that they have enough evidence to go to trial.
Some 200 members of the public and the news media are expected to crowd into the courthouse for the hearing.
Mr. Cosby, who denies the charges, will be among them. He must be present, though he is not expected to testify.
The pressing question is whether Ms. Constand, now 43 and living in Canada, will also be there — not just as a spectator, but as a witness called to testify by the prosecution. Neither her lawyers nor Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin R. Steele are saying.
Prosecutors might simply rely on the statement Ms. Constand gave when she went to the police in 2005. That would avoid exposing her to cross-examination by the defense.
As a matter of strategy, experts say, prosecutors at preliminary hearings hope to move the case to trial while revealing as little of their evidence as possible. The defense typically tries to force prosecutors to offer as much evidence as they can and to question witnesses to gather information in readiness for trial.
“The defense is not using the hearing to get the charges dismissed but to tie witnesses down, to explore as many avenues as possible and perhaps identify inconsistencies, and to develop themes for trial,” said David Rudovsky, a senior fellow at the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
If Ms. Constand takes the stand, the defense will likely try to undermine her account, experts say. Their questions might include why she took a year to file her complaint with police, and why she returned to Mr. Cosby’s home after what she has since described as two previous unwelcome encounters — including one in which she said he unbuttoned her pants and began touching her.
“There are so many questions that she has to answer that she is going to have a tough time,” said Stuart P. Slotnick, a New York defense lawyer and former prosecutor.
Until recently in Pennsylvania, a witness like Ms. Constand would have had to testify at a preliminary hearing. But a state appellate court ruling last year allowed for wider use of hearsay evidence, meaning that a prosecutor could opt to introduce just Ms. Constand’s police statement, not her direct testimony, as evidence at the hearing. The strategy could be risky, though, since the ruling from last year is under appeal to the state’s Supreme Court.
Given that the admissibility of hearsay may be overturned on appeal, prosecutors may not want to rely on the police statement without calling Ms. Constand.
“My sense is she will be there,” said Dennis McAndrews, a Pennsylvania lawyer. “The prosecution would obviously be taking a risk if they did not call the victim to the stand.”
The parameters of the questioning, such as the extent to which it might delve into Ms. Constand’s sexual history, will be set by Judge McHugh, 60.
Under Pennsylvania’s rape shield law, sexual relationships with someone other than the accused are typically not considered a proper subject for cross-examination, Mr. McAndrews said.
“The judge is likely to limit it significantly,” he said.
Prosecutors at the hearing could also enter into evidence a transcript of Mr. Cosby’s deposition from the Constand civil suit, in which he acknowledged obtaining quaaludes as part of an effort to have sex with women.
Since December, when Mr. Cosby was charged, his lawyers have sought a dismissal of the charges, arguing that a former district attorney who carried out an initial investigation in 2005 had made a binding commitment never to pursue charges against Mr. Cosby so as to induce the entertainer to testify in the civil suit.
A trial court judge and an appeals court, however, rejected that argument. Mr. Cosby’s lawyers have a pending appeal, though, in hope of securing a last-minute postponement of Tuesday’s hearing.
Mr. Steele is fighting those attempts. “This rich celebrity defendant is not entitled to unprecedented special treatment,” he said last week.
After the hearing, legal experts expect Mr. Cosby to challenge much of the evidence.
For one thing, they said, his legal team may ask to bar his deposition from the civil case because it is subject to a confidentiality stipulation that he and Ms. Constand agreed to as part of their settlement.
Mr. Cosby is also expected to fight any attempt to introduce evidence from other women who have accused him of drugging and sexually assaulting them.
Such evidence of other alleged bad acts is sometimes ruled admissible under circumstances in which prosecutors can demonstrate that it establishes a defendant’s pattern of behavior, a kind of fingerprint or signature of the defendant.
Mr. Cosby is being sued in civil courts by several others. In a case brought by seven women who are suing Mr. Cosby for defamation in Massachusetts, a judge on Friday released the full transcript of a Feb. 22 deposition by his wife of 52 years, Camille O. Cosby. The women say Mr. Cosby sexually assaulted them and then branded them liars after they came forward. The transcript shows confrontational exchanges between the lawyer for the women and Mrs. Cosby and her lawyers. Mrs. Cosby was asked about her husband’s affairs, but she repeatedly refused to answer questions and often invoked spousal privilege.
In the criminal case, Mr. Cosby faces three charges of aggravated indecent assault, each of which carries a punishment of five to 10 years in prison and a $25,000 fine. The hearing would normally take place in the magisterial district court in Elkins Park, Pa., where Mr. Cosby was arraigned in December and where Ms. Constand accuses Mr. Cosby of drugging and assaulting her. But the hearing is being held in the larger courthouse in Norristown because of the expected news media attention and security issues.
James Koval, director of communications for Pennsylvania courts, said officials are bracing for a high level of interest in a criminal case hearing, with journalists scheduled to arrive from as far away as Australia.
He was planning on arriving in Norristown early on Monday, he said. “We have 20 television production trucks coming in,” he said. “There will be a lot going on.”
He was among America’s most successful entertainers and her mentor.
She was a former young Temple University staff member who said he took advantage of his counseling role, gave her pills and sexually assaulted her in his home outside Philadelphia in 2004.
The setting for their last encounter was a deposition in a Philadelphia hotel, one that would ultimately lead to an out-of-court settlement in 2006 in a civil suit filed against Bill Cosby by his former mentee, Andrea Constand.
On Tuesday, Mr. Cosby and Ms. Constand may well see each other again, this time at a pretrial hearing in a Pennsylvania courthouse where Mr. Cosby, 78, is facing criminal charges filed by prosecutors who say the 2004 encounter was a case of criminal sexual assault.
At the hearing in the Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown, Pa., prosecutors will try to demonstrate for Judge Elizabeth A. McHugh that they have enough evidence to go to trial.
Some 200 members of the public and the news media are expected to crowd into the courthouse for the hearing.
Mr. Cosby, who denies the charges, will be among them. He must be present, though he is not expected to testify.
The pressing question is whether Ms. Constand, now 43 and living in Canada, will also be there — not just as a spectator, but as a witness called to testify by the prosecution. Neither her lawyers nor Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin R. Steele are saying.
Prosecutors might simply rely on the statement Ms. Constand gave when she went to the police in 2005. That would avoid exposing her to cross-examination by the defense.
As a matter of strategy, experts say, prosecutors at preliminary hearings hope to move the case to trial while revealing as little of their evidence as possible. The defense typically tries to force prosecutors to offer as much evidence as they can and to question witnesses to gather information in readiness for trial.
“The defense is not using the hearing to get the charges dismissed but to tie witnesses down, to explore as many avenues as possible and perhaps identify inconsistencies, and to develop themes for trial,” said David Rudovsky, a senior fellow at the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
If Ms. Constand takes the stand, the defense will likely try to undermine her account, experts say. Their questions might include why she took a year to file her complaint with police, and why she returned to Mr. Cosby’s home after what she has since described as two previous unwelcome encounters — including one in which she said he unbuttoned her pants and began touching her.
“There are so many questions that she has to answer that she is going to have a tough time,” said Stuart P. Slotnick, a New York defense lawyer and former prosecutor.
Until recently in Pennsylvania, a witness like Ms. Constand would have had to testify at a preliminary hearing. But a state appellate court ruling last year allowed for wider use of hearsay evidence, meaning that a prosecutor could opt to introduce just Ms. Constand’s police statement, not her direct testimony, as evidence at the hearing. The strategy could be risky, though, since the ruling from last year is under appeal to the state’s Supreme Court.
Given that the admissibility of hearsay may be overturned on appeal, prosecutors may not want to rely on the police statement without calling Ms. Constand.
“My sense is she will be there,” said Dennis McAndrews, a Pennsylvania lawyer. “The prosecution would obviously be taking a risk if they did not call the victim to the stand.”
The parameters of the questioning, such as the extent to which it might delve into Ms. Constand’s sexual history, will be set by Judge McHugh, 60.
Under Pennsylvania’s rape shield law, sexual relationships with someone other than the accused are typically not considered a proper subject for cross-examination, Mr. McAndrews said.
“The judge is likely to limit it significantly,” he said.
Prosecutors at the hearing could also enter into evidence a transcript of Mr. Cosby’s deposition from the Constand civil suit, in which he acknowledged obtaining quaaludes as part of an effort to have sex with women.
Since December, when Mr. Cosby was charged, his lawyers have sought a dismissal of the charges, arguing that a former district attorney who carried out an initial investigation in 2005 had made a binding commitment never to pursue charges against Mr. Cosby so as to induce the entertainer to testify in the civil suit.
A trial court judge and an appeals court, however, rejected that argument. Mr. Cosby’s lawyers have a pending appeal, though, in hope of securing a last-minute postponement of Tuesday’s hearing.
Mr. Steele is fighting those attempts. “This rich celebrity defendant is not entitled to unprecedented special treatment,” he said last week.
After the hearing, legal experts expect Mr. Cosby to challenge much of the evidence.
For one thing, they said, his legal team may ask to bar his deposition from the civil case because it is subject to a confidentiality stipulation that he and Ms. Constand agreed to as part of their settlement.
Mr. Cosby is also expected to fight any attempt to introduce evidence from other women who have accused him of drugging and sexually assaulting them.
Such evidence of other alleged bad acts is sometimes ruled admissible under circumstances in which prosecutors can demonstrate that it establishes a defendant’s pattern of behavior, a kind of fingerprint or signature of the defendant.
Mr. Cosby is being sued in civil courts by several others. In a case brought by seven women who are suing Mr. Cosby for defamation in Massachusetts, a judge on Friday released the full transcript of a Feb. 22 deposition by his wife of 52 years, Camille O. Cosby. The women say Mr. Cosby sexually assaulted them and then branded them liars after they came forward. The transcript shows confrontational exchanges between the lawyer for the women and Mrs. Cosby and her lawyers. Mrs. Cosby was asked about her husband’s affairs, but she repeatedly refused to answer questions and often invoked spousal privilege.
In the criminal case, Mr. Cosby faces three charges of aggravated indecent assault, each of which carries a punishment of five to 10 years in prison and a $25,000 fine. The hearing would normally take place in the magisterial district court in Elkins Park, Pa., where Mr. Cosby was arraigned in December and where Ms. Constand accuses Mr. Cosby of drugging and assaulting her. But the hearing is being held in the larger courthouse in Norristown because of the expected news media attention and security issues.
James Koval, director of communications for Pennsylvania courts, said officials are bracing for a high level of interest in a criminal case hearing, with journalists scheduled to arrive from as far away as Australia.
He was planning on arriving in Norristown early on Monday, he said. “We have 20 television production trucks coming in,” he said. “There will be a lot going on.”
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