The criminal case against Bill Cosby came to an end Saturday when Judge Steven O’Neill of the Montgomery County District Court in Pennsylvania declared a mistrial, citing a still-deadlocked jury. District Attorney Kevin Steele said that he plans to retry the case, but Cosby walks free for now.
“It’s too early to celebrate Mr. Cosby, ” Gloria Allred, a lawyer representing many of Cosby’s accusers, told reporters. “Round two may be just around the corner and this time justice may prevail.”
Steele has up to one year to retry the case, in which Cosby had pleaded not guilty to accusations of drugging and raping dozens of women. Andrea Constand, former director of operations for Temple University’s basketball team, was one of these women. She testified at the trial that in 2004, Cosby had molested her at his home in Pennsylvania while she was incapacitated from three pills that he had given her.
Constand had filed a civil suit against Cosby in 2005, during which Cosby admitted to giving Quaaludes to women with whom he wanted to have sex. He claimed that his encounter with Constand was consensual and that he had given her the pills to help her relax.
“From the moment she revealed what had happened to her, Andrea sought to have this matter addressed in the criminal justice system,” read a statement by Constand’s lawyers on Saturday. “Given the manner in which she was dismissed by the previous district attorney, she had no option but to file a civil suit. We are confident that these proceedings have given a voice to the many victims who felt powerless and silenced.”
The jury in this year’s criminal trial heard excerpts from the civil trial’s proceedings. Cosby never took the stand, however.
Only one witness, a detective, took the stand for the defense. The prosecution’s witnesses were many and included Constand, her mother, and several other women who allege that Cosby raped them.