Date Set For Bill Cosby's Retrial

NORRISTOWN, PA — The Bill Cosby retrial now has a date. After being delayed in August, Montgomery County Judge Steven T. O'Neill announced Friday that the comedian would stand trial again on April 2, 2018.

Cosby, 80, had previously been slated to return for a retrial on Nov. 6. However, after Cosby's leading attorney Brian McMonagle and then Angela Agrusa both left him, the court determined that Cosby's new lawyers would require more time to prepare their client's defense.

“To ask someone to review the voluminous record over 18 months — now 20 months in this case — simply cannot be done,” O'Neill said at the time.

Cosby will return to Montgomery County Court just under a year after his first trial for aggravated indecent assault began in June, 2017. That trial ended in a mistrial when the jury was deadlocked and unable to agree on his innocence or guilt.

When he does return to court next spring, Cosby will be represented by an entirely new defense team. He announced in August that former Michael Jackson lawyer Thomas Meserau would head his defense, and would be joined by attorneys Kathleen Bliss and Sam Silver.

The trio will now have six and a half more months to prepare Cosby's defense.

Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele will lead the prosecution.

Judge Steven T. O'Neill, who presided over the first trial, will serve as judge again for the retrial.

Although more than 40 women have accused Cosby of some kind of sexual assault, Constand's case was the first to be brought this far along in the justice system. Most of his other accusers allege incidents that occurred in decades past, long enough ago that the statute of limitations has passed, meaning they cannot prosecute.

Image via Montgomery County District Attorney's Office