By Nancy Dillon
New York Daily News
Comedian Bill Cosby is asking for bail seven months after his sentencing for sex assault —a move that led one of his accusers to laugh out loud.
Cosby filed a motion Wednesday claiming he deserves to be released from his state prison in Pennsylvania because the judge who sentenced him to three to 10 years behind bars last September is biased and delaying his appeal.
“It’s pretty hilarious. Honestly, the fact that I’m able to laugh at this buffoonery is a real sign of my healing and closure,” accuser Lili Bernard told the New York Daily News.
Bernard stepped forward in 2015 to say she was drugged and raped by Cosby in the early 1990s after he cast her on “The Cosby Show” as a pregnant patient of his character Dr. Cliff Huxtable.
“It’s highly creative and desperate, of course,” she said of the motion. “It’s more of his three-ring circus. But I guess it’s an indication he’s suffering. Who wants to be in prison? But he’s a convicted serial rapist. That’s where he belongs.”
Cosby, 81, argues in his new paperwork that Judge Steven T. O’Neill is intentionally dragging his feet with a ruling that’s a prerequisite to the actor’s planned appeal.
“Bail is justified under the circumstances give Mr. Cosby’s advanced age and the strong likelihood that his conviction will not stand on appeal,” his filing states.
“While Mr. Cosby recognizes that bail applications are ordinarily brought first in the trial court, he seeks relief from this court because the trial judge (O’Neill) suffers from a disabling conflict of interest that would render a bail application in the trial court futile,” it argues.
Cosby claims O’Neill had a personal interest in his conviction last year due to his “contentious relationship” with the former Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce Castor.
It was Castor who initially declined to file sex assault charges against Cosby in 2005, the year Temple University staffer Andrea Constand first stepped forward with allegations the comedian sexually assaulted her in 2004. A different DA reversed the decision and filed the criminal case in December 2015.
According to Cosby’s motion, Judge O’Neill should have recused himself from the trial because he and Castor were political rivals in a 1999 election, and the defense considered Castor one of its star witnesses.
A central theme of Cosby’s appeal is that Castor promised him immunity from prosecution in 2005, and that’s the only reason Cosby agreed to answer questions during a deposition in Constand’s 2005 civil lawsuit, instead of invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
That deposition figured prominently in the trial that led to Cosby’s conviction. In some of the most damaging testimony, Cosby admitted he kept a supply of Quaaludes to give to women he found attractive.
Cosby claims O’Neill should have declared the deposition testimony inadmissible but allowed it due to his alleged “feud” with Castor.
O’Neill has denied any personal animus toward Castor in prior statements.
“His dishonorable conduct makes me smile, because this judge is being exposed, and it shows that this is bigger than me,” Cosby said in a statement released Wednesday by his spokesman Andrew Wyatt.
Lawyer Gloria Allred, who represents several Cosby accusers, said Wednesday that the new motion should be denied because the court found Cosby to be a “sexually violent predator.”
“Mr. Cosby should serve his sentence and consider himself fortunate that the court did not order consecutive prison sentences and allowed him instead to have his sentences run concurrently,” she said in a statement to The News.
Bernard said Cosby’s unwillingness to accept responsibility for his actions will be more fodder for her and other accusers to use at possible future hearings related to his parole.
“The fact that he’s denying his crimes is proof he’s still a malignantly narcissistic criminal and a menace to society,” she said. “He’s in denial.”
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