Bill Cosby leaves Pennsylvania mansion to fly to Massachusetts and reunite with his wife
Bill Cosby leaves his Pennsylvania mansion to reunite with his wife Camille in Massachusetts – as his reps call his conviction ‘the greatest deceit of the 21st Century’ and insist he WILL make a comeback
- Camille Cosby, 77, was nowhere to be seen on Wednesday when her husband was released from prison
- She is at the Cosby home in Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts – Bill, 83, is now on his way there
- The PA Supreme Court overturned Cosby’s conviction because of a ‘promise’ from DA Bruce Castor in 2005
- Castor told Cosby he wouldn’t prosecute him but he had to sit for a deposition for a lawsuit
- He did and as a result, incriminated himself by admitting he used quaaludes on women to sleep with them
- Another DA then used those remarks to charge him in 2015, as the #MeToo era was slowly gathering steam
- Cosby had argued that the testimony of 5 ‘bad act’ witnesses shouldn’t have been allowed at his trial
- The PA Supreme Court left that issue alone in its ruling, instead focusing only on Castor’s ‘promise’
- Cosby says he is determined to get back to work and his conviction was ‘the greatest deceit of the century’
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Bill Cosby was pictured leaving his Pennsylvania home on Thursday to fly on a private jet to Massachusetts where he will reunite with his wife Camille a day after being released from prison, as his reps said he was ready to make his comeback and was ‘in contract’ with documentary makers.
The 83-year-old was helped out of his Elkins Park mansion by his spokesperson Andrew Wyatt. He was wearing black sweatpants and a black t-shirt with a large C on the front. He didn’t speak, but waved at photographers before getting into a car.
He will be driven to a private plane which will fly him 200 miles from Pennsylvania to Massachusetts, where he keeps a home with Camille, 77. She has not been seen since he left prison on Wednesday.
Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court overturned his sexual assault conviction on Wednesday in a surprise decision, setting him free and ruling that he couldn’t be prosecuted again.
The basis of the decision was a promise made to Cosby in 2005 by former Montgomery County Prosecutor Bruce Castor, who said he wouldn’t charge him for allegedly sexually assaulting Andrea Constand in 2004, in exchange for Cosby being deposed as part of a civil lawsuit.
In 2015, a new Montgomery Coutny District Attorney – Kevin Steele – charged Cosby anyway, using the comments Cosby made in his deposition as proof. The Supreme Court agreed to hear Cosby’s case last June and handed down their decision on Wednesday, with a slim majority of four of the court’s seven justices agreeing that Cosby should go free.
Cosby spent his first night of freedom dining on fish, pizza and collared greens. He had a cooked breakfast from his old chef, Mr Fabio, on Thursday morning before setting off around 1pm to reunite with Camille.
His representatives say his conviction was the ‘greatest deceit of the 21st Century’ and that he is ready to work again. It’s unclear who his ‘documentary contract’ is with.
They also say his release sets a precedent for others who are appealing their #MeToo convictions. Harvey Weinstein’s legal team are looking at Cosby’s appeal and the Supreme Court decision to see if it will help their case and on Thursday, Ghislaine Maxwell’s attorney wrote an op-ed for The New York Daily News saying she should also go free.
The 83-year-old was helped out of the house by his spokesperson Andrew Wyatt. He was wearing black sweatpants and a black t-shirt with a large C on the front. He didn’t speak, but waved at photographers before getting into a car
Cosby was escorted out of his home by Andrew Wyatt. He was dressed casually in black sweatpants, a t-shirt with a large C on the front, and sneakers. He was carrying a COVID mask
Camille Cosby with her husband in April 2018, at his retrial. She said last June that her husband was being vilified by white women and that she ‘didn’t care’ how his accusers felt
COSBY’S FIRST NIGHT OF FREEDOM – HE HAD FISH, COLLARED GREENS AND ‘CRUNCHY PIZZA’
Cosby outside his home on Wednesday after being released
Cosby celebrated his first night of freedom on Wednesday by first ordering in Italian fish and collared greens, then sending his rep to get him ‘crispy, crunchy’ pizza.
The 83-year-old spent the night at his Pennsylvania mansion without his wife or kids, but with his long-serving rep Andrew Wyatt.
Wyatt told reporters on Thursday that he had to ‘relearn’ the house when he got inside because he is blind and couldn’t work his way around.
Wyatt said he took him round but that within an hour, he was moving about by himself.
The first thing he wanted to eat was fish and collared greens, Wyatt said.
He then sent him out again at night to pick him up a pizza.
‘He made me leave and go get that fresh basil mozzarella and extra sauce. Extra crispy. From Zio’s – we put it on his social media and everything about his wonderful pizza.
‘He said don’t tell my wife, I said too late. The first thing he had was collared greens and fish. Italian fish that he wanted, now he’s having his breakfast.
‘Mr. Fabio drove over to cook him his breakfast – hard scrambled eggs, sausages and potatoes.
‘He’s having that right now.’
There was no sign of Cosby’s three adult children, Erinn, Evin and Erika, at the home. It’s unclear if they still support him. Ensa, one of Cosby’s daughters, died aged 44 from renal disease in 2018.
The couple’s son, Ennis, was killed in 1997 during an attempted robbery.
Earlier on Thursday, Cosby’s rep told reporters outside the home: ‘He is going to go see Mrs. Cosby. He got up early, he had a shower. He’s having his breakfast sitting at the table right now.’
Asked if Cosby would work again, Wyatt said: ‘He’s Bill Cosby.
‘He is one of the greatest of the world. There’s always going to be a different narrative.
‘You don’t have 1million followers and counting if you don’t have support.’
Wyatt said Cosby was under contract with ‘documentary people’ which means he might not make a statement today, but said: ‘Trust me. This guy wants to talk.’
He also said that Cosby, who says he is blind, had to ‘relearn’ the house yesterday but was now ‘moving around on his own’.
Camille was vocal in her support of her husband throughout his trial.
Last June, she said she ‘didn’t care’ about how his accusers felt and thought the #MeToo movement had to ‘clean up its act’, saying: ‘We all know how women lie’.
She also compared her husband to Emmett Till, a 14-year-old African American boy who was lynched in 1955 after being falsely accused of sexually harassing a white woman.
‘I don’t care what they feel,’ she said of her husband’s accusers and anyone who felt she was on ‘the wrong side of history’, telling ABC that many of the women speaking out as part of #MeToo were lying.
She also compared her husband to Emmett Till, a 14-year-old black boy who was the 1955 after being accused of sexually harassing a white woman.
‘The parallel is that the same age-old thing about particular white women making accusations against black men that are unproven,’ Camille said.
‘Emmett Till’s outcome, to mutilate his body in the way that it was, was just really so deeply horrendous.
‘There’s a lack of words for that kind of hatefulness.’
‘The #MeToo movement and movements like them have intentional ignorance pertaining to the history of particular white women – not all white women – but particular white women, who have from the very beginning, pertaining to the enslavement of African people, accused black males of sexual assault without any proof whatsoever.
There were many people outside the Cosby mansion to celebrate the 83-year-old’s freedom on Wednesday but Camille was not one of them
The Cosby home in Massachusetts. There has been no sign of Camille there on Thursday morning. It is around 200 miles from the Pennsylvania home
Bill Cosby is congratulated by his wife Camille at the 1965-1966 Emmy Awards, where he received the Emmy for Outstanding Continued Performance By an Actor in a Leading Role in a Dramatic Series for his role in I Spy. The pair got married in 1964
Cosby’s comeback: Comedian’s rep claims he is ‘in contract’ with ‘documentary makers’
Outside his home in Elkins Park, near Philadelphia, his spokesman Andrew Wyatt told reporters that he would work again.
‘He’s Bill Cosby. He is one of the greatest of the world.
‘There’s always going to be a different narrative… but you don’t have 1million followers and counting if you don’t have support,’ he said.
Cosby hasn’t worked since 2015, when he was arrested. Aside from The Cosby Show, he had a run of successful stand up shows. He plans to go on the road again to ‘tell his story’ his reps say
Wyatt said Cosby was under contract with ‘documentary people’ which means he might not make a statement today, but said: ‘Trust me. This guy wants to talk.’
He didn’t say which ‘documentary’ people he was working with.
None of the major streaming services have put their name to any project with Cosby and representatives for Netflix, Hulu, HBO and Amazon did not respond to inquiries on the matter on Thursday.
Cosby hasn’t worked since 2015, when he was charged.
He was dropped by CAA and canceled by NBC, BET and other networks which were playing reruns of his shows like The Cosby Show and he was also stripped of honorary titles from universities.
His last show was Bill Cosby: Far from Finished, was still running in 2015 despite more and more women coming forward to accuse him of assault.
Wyatt hasn’t given more details of what kind of show the 83-year-old might now produce or appear in.
Cosby says his blind and he was visibly frail on Wednesday and Thursday, unable to walk on his own.
Nonetheless, his team is adamant he’ll work and that people want to hear from him.
One booking expert told TMZ that he could command up to $20,000 for appearances once he’s out.
The group of people he would appeal to include people who think he’s innocent, or are willing to forgive him.
‘And by ignoring that history, they have put out a lie in itself and that is: “Because I’m female, I’m telling the truth.” Well history disproves that, as well, and gender has never, ever equated with truth.
‘So, they need to clean up their acts.
‘And it’s all of us as women who have not participated anything nefarious – we know how women can lie.
‘We know how they can do the same things that men do – that some men do – because there are good men and bad men. There are good women and bad women.’
Camille, 77, married Bill in 1964, some years before the allegations against him began.
At the time, he was 27 and he had just launched his showbiz career with stand-up shows.
It wasn’t until the 1980s that he became a household name. The allegations of sexual misconduct start around then too.
On Thursday morning, Cosby’s spokesperson said that his conviction was ‘one of the greatest deceits of the 21st Century asides from sport’.
‘He was given a deal by Bruce Castor and two years ago, Bruce Castor said – I gave him a deal.
‘He said I had the right to do that and I did it because Andrea Constand had given him five different statements.’
Cosby’s rep said he was only ever charged by Kevin Steele because he had a ‘vendetta’ against Castor.
On Wednesday night, Steele said he hoped the decision by the Supreme Court wouldn’t deter other victims from coming forward.
‘My hope is that this decision will not dampen the reporting of sexual assaults by victims.
‘We still believe that no one is above the law — including those who are rich, famous and powerful,’ he said in a statement.
Cosby’s accusers reacted angrily to his release. They said they were ‘shocked’ and ‘disgusted’ by the decision.
On Thursday, Kathy McKee – who claims Cosby attacked her in a hotel in 1982 when she was Sammy Davis Jr’s girlfriend – appeared on CNN.
‘What’s happening right now is so frightening and scary. It seems as though women, we just really don’t count. if you don’t have any money or if you’re African American or a woman, if you can’t afford attorneys and the years it takes to sue someone or pursue action, you can forget it. That’s what this looks like. That’s certainly what happened with me.
‘You have to think about how many people are in prison right now for rape that might not have done it and they were not able to afford a decent attorney.
‘Bill Cosby did this and he’s free. He admitted to doing this act. Nobody on the planet could possibly believe that all of the women that have come forward, that he didn’t do this.
‘It’s the money and the power that has Bill Cosby at home right now. He was able to to afford to pay all of these attorneys to work all these years to free him.
‘He admitted to doing this act.
‘Nobody on the planet could possibly believe that all of the women that have come forward, that he didn’t do this.
‘It’s just a mess. It’s terrible, it’s just terrible. Now what?’
She previously said she thought he was going to kill her when he sexually assaulted her.
Cosby’s accuser Andrea Constand said she hopes the Supreme Court’s decision didn’t deter other women from coming forward. On Thursday, Kathy McKee – who claims Cosby attacked her in a hotel in 1982 when she was Sammy Davis Jr’s girlfriend – appeared on CNN to say Cosby’s release was ‘terrible’ and ‘frightening’
This is how Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court voted to free Cosby or keep him jailed. Justice David Wecht (top left) wrote the decision and the court’s three female justices, Debra Todd (bottom right), Christine Donohue (second top left) and Sallie Updyke Mundy (top right) agreed with him. Justices Max Baer (bottom left), Thomas G. Saylor (bottom middle) and Kevin M. Dougherty (top, second from right) dissented
THE ‘DEAL’ THAT SET COSBY FREE
Former Montgomery County DA Bruce Castor
The Supreme Court did not rule on whether or not the testimony of five women who were ‘bad act’ witnesses contributed to Cosby’s fate, or whether or not their testimony was fair. Instead, they looked only at the comment made by Montgomery County Prosecutor Bruce Castor, and found that it was the reason Cosby should go free.
In 2005, Cosby had been reported to Castor’s office by the police in Pennsylvania after Andrea Constand reported the alleged assault.
It became public knowledge.
After pursuing an investigation, Castor’s office released a press release saying he would not be charging Cosby because of a lack of evidence.
That press release is the ‘deal’ Cosby thinks he made. There was no formal definition in it about how long it would last or if future prosecutors were bound by it.
This is part of the release:
‘Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce L. Castor, Jr. has announced that a joint investigation… into allegations against actor and comic Bill Cosby is concluded.
This is the 2005 release by Castor’s office which Cosby thought was an ‘immunity deal’
‘The detectives could find no instance in Mr. Cosby’s past where anyone complained to law enforcement of conduct, which would constitute a criminal offense.
‘After reviewing the above and consulting with County and Cheltenham detectives, the District Attorney finds insufficient, credible, and admissible evidence exists upon which any charge against Mr. Cosby could be sustained beyond a reasonable doubt.
‘In making this finding, the District Attorney has analyzed the facts in relation to the elements of any applicable offenses, including whether Mr. Cosby possessed the requisite criminal intent.
‘After this analysis, the District Attorney concludes that a conviction under the circumstances of this case would be unattainable.
‘As such, District Attorney Castor declines to authorize the filing of criminal charges in connection with this matter. Because a civil action with a much lower standard for proof is possible, the District Attorney renders no opinion concerning the credibility of any party involved so as to not contribute to the publicity and taint prospective jurors.
‘The District Attorney does not intend to expound publicly on the details of his decision for fear that his opinions and analysis might be given undue weight by jurors in any contemplated civil action. District Attorney Castor cautions all parties to this matter that he will reconsider this decision should the need arise.
‘Much exists in this investigation that could be used (by others) to portray persons on both sides of the issue in a less than flattering light. The District Attorney encourages the parties to resolve their dispute from this point forward with a minimum of rhetoric.
‘After reviewing the above and consulting with County and Cheltenham detectives, the District Attorney finds insufficient, credible, and admissible evidence exists upon which any charge against Mr. Cosby could be sustained beyond a reasonable doubt.’
In emails years later, Castor said that he made the deal with Cosby to get Constand a settlement.
In one, which is included in the Supreme Court decision, he says: ‘The attached is the written determination that we would not prosecute Cosby. That was what the lawyers for [Constand] wanted and I agreed.
‘The reason I agreed and the plaintiff’s lawyers wanted it in writing is so that Cosby could not take the 5th Amendment to avoid being deposed or testifying. A sound strategy to employ.’
The Supreme Court ruled that the prosecutor – far from trying to let Cosby off the hook – performed a legal ‘bait and switch’ and lulled him into making incriminating statements.
‘The moment that Cosby was charged criminally, he was harmed: all that he had forfeited earlier, and the consequences of that forfeiture in the civil case, were for naught. This was, as the CDO itself characterizes it, an unconstitutional ‘coercive bait-and-switch’.
