by Rachel Sharp at The Daily Mail
Bill Cosby‘s ‘disgusted’ accusers have described his release as a ‘kick in the gut’ as he walked free from prison Wednesday, just hours after his sexual assault conviction was overturned in a stunning ruling.
The disgraced comedian, once known as ‘America’s dad’, left state prison in suburban Montgomery County after serving less than three years of a three to 10 year sentence for drugging and sexually assaulting Temple University sports administrator Andrea Constand at his home in Pennsylvania in 2004.
His release came after Pennsylvania’s highest court threw out his conviction, ruling that the prosecutor who brought the case was bound by his predecessor’s promise not to prosecute him.
Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce Castor had promised Cosby he wouldn’t be charged when Constand reported the assault to police in 2005. There was no evidence that promise was ever put in writing.
However, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court judges on Wednesday said this promise led the comedian to incriminate himself in a damning deposition where he confessed to drugging women with Quaaludes to get them to have sex with him.
This deposition was then used by the new Montgomery County DA Kevin Steele to bring charges against him in 2015.
In Wednesday’s ruling, the judges said Cosby was robbed of his fifth amendment right not to incriminate himself when he was deposed, and so had to be freed and cannot face prosecution on the charges again.
The shock overturning of his sentence comes as a major blow to the #MeToo movement and the at least 60 women who came forward to accuse the comedian of assault, with many of them speaking out Wednesday to condemn the ruling…
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