Still Standing by her Man: Camille Cosby wants judge removed from Bill Cosby case ahead of sentencing
Despite his conviction for sexual assault, Camille Cosby continues to fight for her husband Bill Cosby.
And now Camille Cosby wants the current Pennsylvania judge Steven T. O’Neill to remove himself from the disgraced comedian’s case. The 81-year-old Cosby was convicted on three counts of felony sexual assault in a 2004 assault of former Temple University women’s basketball staff member Andrea Constand.
He is due to be sentenced by O’Neill on Sept. 24 and is facing up to 10 years of prison. Camille, and Bill’s legal team, are requesting that O’Neill be taken off the case claiming he wasn’t given a fair trial.
“The public, and Mr. Cosby, were entitled to know about Judge O’Neill’s bias before the judge made these rulings,” Camille Cosby said in a statement. “That this judge would hide his bias and decide that his rival, the former D.A., could not be trusted to give truthful testimony, shows that the judge let his own personal feelings override Mr. Cosby’s right to a fair trial.
“If a judge would do this in a case as high-profile as this one, then he cannot be trusted to be a fair judge for anyone else either,” she added.
According to AtlantaBlackStar, the claim comes from O’Neill’s alleged beef with Bruce Castor, the former Montgomery County district attorney. The issue supposedly stems from a 1999 Republican district attorney race that O’Neill lost to Castor.
Cosby claims that during that campaign, Castor forced a woman that O’Neill had been romantically involved with a woman to publicly support him in the race. Castor was the district attorney of Bill’s original sexual assault case in 2006, and his testimony was crucial to this current one.
Castor dropped the charges citing a lack of evidence and made a promise to Cosby that he would never be prosecuted for the 2006 accusation. Cosby’s legal team claims that the O’Neill “refused to believe the sworn testimony” because of his own bias and have filed legal documents requesting O’Neill be removed from the case.
“Judge O’Neill must provide a full accounting of his bias against the former D.A., and correct the horrible injustice done to Mr. Cosby and to our system of justice,” Camille said.
