Bill Cosby will remain a free man after the Supreme Court said Monday that it will not review a decision to overturn the 84-year-old’s 2018 sexual assault conviction.
The disgraced comedian was released from prison on June 30, 2021, when the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned his conviction, citing due process rights violations. In 2004, Cosby provided deposition testimony in the civil suit filed by accuser Andrea Constand admitting that he had administered Quaaludes to women in the past, but under an agreement that the testimony couldn’t be used in a criminal trial — as in fact it later was.
Constand had been one of 33 women who came forward with sexual assault allegations against Cosby after a 2014 standup routine by comedian Hannibal Buress went viral. However, only Constand’s case was eligible for criminal prosecution due to statutes of limitations.
Cosby was sentenced to three to ten years in prison on Sep. 25, 2018, and served nearly three years before his release.
Unfortunately, Cosby was freed with that amounted to a procedural technicality. According to ABC News, the Supreme Court did not comment further when rejecting the case, which was one of a long list of cases that the court said it would not hear.
If you know someone suffering from sexual violence, contact RAINN or the National Sexual Abuse Telephone Hotline at 1-800-656-4673.