Bill Cosby Going to Trial

Damn! This is on heck of a long fall.

Pennsylvania judge decides Cosby sex assault case will go to trial

A Pennsylvania judge has decided that disgraced comedian Bill Cosby will go to trial for criminal sexual assault.

The judge reviewed testimony, excerpts of the comedian’s interview with police and other evidence from prosecutors.

Earlier, it was revealed in court that Andrea Constand told authorities that Cosby violated her sexually after giving her three pills that made her dizzy, blurry-eyed and nauseated and left her legs feeling “like jelly,” according to a police report read at the hearing on Tuesday.

“I told him, ‘I can’t even talk, Mr. Cosby.’ I started to panic,” the former Temple University athletic department employee told police in 2005.

The testimony was read at a preliminary hearing to determine whether prosecutors have enough evidence to put the 78-year-old TV star on trial on sexual assault charges that could bring 10 years in prison.

It was not the face-to-face confrontation between accuser and accused that some had anticipated: Constand was not in the courtroom, and the judge ruled that she would not have to testify at the hearing and that prosecutors could instead have her statements to police read into the record.

Cosby’s lawyers argued unsuccessfully that that would be hearsay and would deprive him of his right to confront his accuser. Such testimony from law enforcement officers is common practice at preliminary hearings in Pennsylvania, which have a far lower burden of proof than trials.