Bill Cosby Has Been Released From PA Prison

PENNSYVLANIA — In a move refuting one of the earliest and most prominent criminal convictions of the MeToo era, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned Bill Cosby's sexual assault sentence Wednesday, citing an immunity deal reached with a prosecutor in 2005. The ruling also bars Cosby from being tried in this case ever again.

Cosby was released from prison at around 2:30 p.m. Wednesday afternoon, the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections confirmed.

The comedian, now 83, was sentenced to three to 10 years behind bars in 2018 after being convicted of drugging and sexually abusing Andrea Constand inside his Cheltenham home in 2004.

Justices ruled that Cosby could not be charged due to an immunity agreement he had in place with Bruce Castor, then the Montgomery County District Attorney (and more recently, the impeachment defense lawyer for President Donald Trump). That agreement, oft-cited during the years leading up to Cosby's trial and eventual conviction, included damning testimony in which Cosby admitted he gave quaaludes to women.

In the majority opinion filed in Pennsylvania Wednesday, the state Supreme Court acknowledged the "strong interest" of society in holding the powerful to account, while explaining why they thought Cosby must be released.

"It is also true that no such interest, however important, ever can eclipse society’s interest in ensuring that the constitutional rights of the people are vindicated," the opinion reads. "Society’s interest in prosecution does not displace the remedy due to constitutionally aggrieved persons."

Cosby has been booked in Montgomery County's SCI Phoenix for more than two and a half years. His legal team has pursued every avenue to secure his release, and all the while Cosby has refused to admit guilt, citing everything from the coronavirus pandemic to institutional racism as the reasons for his incarceration.

"I have never changed my stance nor my story," Cosby said in a statement published to his social media page Wednesday evening. "I have always maintained my innocence. Thank you to all my fans, supporters and friends who stood by me through this ordeal. Special thanks to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court for upholding the rule of law."

Cosby was the first among a slew of powerful men brought to reckoning over charges that he abused his power for sexual gain, as the MeToo movement took off in the mid-2010s and toppled once powerful figures and convicted abusers like Harvey Weinstein.

For those who allege they were victimized by Cosby — and the system that props such behavior up — Wednesday's decision ripped open old wounds. To Shaunna Thomas, the executive director of women's organization UltraViolet, the conviction should serve as a call to action that the nation's criminal justice system remains deeply broken.

"The idea that Pennsylvania’s state court would convict a man of sexual assault, only to vacate that conviction two years later on appeal due to a ‘non-prosecution agreement,’ is exactly the kind of systemic misogyny laden within the law that #MeToo fights against," Thomas said. "This decision further demonstrates the profound need for change in our legal system — to center survivors and their experiences, not abusers."

Kate Snow with NBC News reported a text exchange with Cosby accuser Eden Tirl Wednesday, which pointed to other systemic faultings:

“From the very beginning, the rigid constructs of the statute of limitations did not provide protection or a pathway for justice for the women that came out against Cosby," Tirl reportedly said. "The outdated laws are so clearly in place, protecting men in these cases, more often than not. This is the story of the MeToo movement that must be included in the narrative now and not pushing the Cosby story off to the side. I am completely out of breath.”

There are other concerns heading into the future, with worries that convictions like these could dissuade other victims of abuse from coming forward.

"He was found guilty by a jury and now goes free on a procedural issue that is irrelevant to the facts of the crime," Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele, who prosecuted Cosby in 2018, said in a part of an emailed statement to Patch. "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.”

Among the only notable public figures to express something less than disgust with the ruling was Phylicia Rashad, who played Cosby's on-screen wife, Clair Huxtable, for years on "The Cosby Show."

"FINALLY!!!! A terrible wrong is being righted- a miscarriage of justice is corrected!" she shared on social media.

Dozens of women have come forward with similar allegations of abuse against Cosby since Constand's case became public, although Constand's case is the first that was brought to criminal trial.

Read the full Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision here. For background on the Cosby case, see here.