NORRISTOWN >> Prosecutors called sifting through Bill Cosby’s alleged history of sexual misconduct a “herculean task” in a motion filed Tuesday to include those deeds as testimony during the entertainer’s trial.
The motion requests that accounts by 13 of Cosby’s alleged victims be included in the trial, narrowed down from nearly 50 women that were investigated, Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin R. Steele writes, in the interest of “judicial economy.”
The motion includes the accounts of those women who met the comedian through the entertainment industry or other social settings. The accounts listed in the motion show similarities to the story told by Andrea Constand, the woman Cosby is charged with assaulting.
Steele argues in the motion that under Pennsylvania Rule of Evidence 404(b), which details if and when “prior bad acts” may be included as testimony during a criminal trial, these victim accounts serve two purposes.
“First, defendant’s behaviors took on the form of a common plan, scheme or design. Second, defendant’s actions demonstrate an absence of mistake,” the motion reads. “That is to say, an individual who, over the course of decades, intentionally intoxicates women in a signature fashion with the intention of sexually assaulting them cannot also be mistaken about whether or not those women are consenting to the sexual abuse.”
Constand alleged that Cosby gave her pills and wine during a visit to his home in Cheltenham.
William Henry Cosby Jr., as his name appears on charging documents, faces three felony counts of aggravated indecent assault in connection with the alleged sexual assault of Constand, a former Temple University athletic department employee, at his home in the 8200 block of New Second Street in Cheltenham between mid-January and mid-February 2004. The charges were lodged against Cosby, 78, on Dec. 30, before the 12-year statute of limitations to file charges expired.
The newspaper does not normally identify victims of sex crimes without their consent but is using Constand’s name because she has identified herself publicly.
