This is Why Bill Cosby Was Suddenly Released from Prison

Famed comedian Bill Cosby was released from prison on Wednesday after a court overturned his conviction.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned Cosby’s indecent assault conviction for assaulting Andrea Constand because of a non-prosecution agreement Cosby had with a prior prosecutor.

The state’s highest court overturned the conviction as a result of an agreement the comedian had with a prior prosecutor that would have prevented Cosby from being criminally charged in the case.

The ruling bars any retrial in the case, court documents say.

The 83-year-old comedian had served two years into a three-to-10-year prison term.

Cosby’s spokesman Andrew Wyatt stated, “We want to thank the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. This is what we have been fighting for and this is justice and justice for black America.”

“This is the justice Mr. Cosby has been fighting for. They saw the light,” Wyatt said, according to NBC News. “He was given a deal, and he had immunity. He should have never been charged.”

Cosby had been accused of drugging and molesting Andrea Constand in 2004. Constand was a former Temple University employee whose allegation was the basis of the criminal case.

He was charged in 2015 for the alleged attack and arrested just days before the 12-year statute of limitations expired. He was sentenced in 2018.

According to Cosby, his contact with Constand was consensual.

″[Cosby] was found guilty by a jury and now goes free on a procedural issue that is irrelevant to the facts of the crime,” District Attorney Kevin Steele said. “My hope is that this decision will not dampen the reporting of sexual assaults by victims.

Prosecutors in my office will continue to follow the evidence wherever and to whomever it leads. We still believe that no one is above the law — including those who are rich, famous and powerful.”

“Seeking ‘some measure of justice’ for Constand, D.A. Castor decided that the Commonwealth would decline to prosecute Cosby for the incident involving Constand, thereby allowing Cosby to be forced to testify in a subsequent civil action, under penalty of perjury, without the benefit of his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination,” the court document said.

“Having identified a due process violation here, we must ascertain the remedy to which Cosby is entitled,” the court document added.

Harvey Weinstein’s legal team has issued a statement embracing the court’s decision,
“In reversing the conviction of Bill Cosby, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has demonstrated, once again, that no matter who a defendant may be and no matter the nature of the crime, courts can be relied upon to follow the law and come to the correct decision. This decision also reaffirms our confidence that the Appellate Division in New York will reach the similarly correct decision in Harvey Weinstein’s appeal, considering the abundance of issues that cry out for a reversal.”

Phylicia Rashad, who played Cosby’s wife on TV, tweeted that the court’s decision was a “terrible wrong … being righted.”