Skip to content
Advertisement

Bill Cosby speaks out after release

Advertisement
Bill Cosby has been released from prison. (306470)
Bill Cosby has been released from prison. Credit: Bill Cosby / Twitter

Freshly released from prison after having his conviction overturned by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, Bill Cosby has opened up like never before.

In conversations with the Black Press of America, and his only extensive comments since his June 30 release after nearly three years, Cosby took his detractors — and others — to task.

“The court’s decision was not a technicality,” said Cosby. “These people sound like they haven’t read what the judges have written. It’s not a technicality. These [detractors] don’t want to know anything.”

In his now-infamous civil deposition whose unsealing led to the overturned criminal trial verdict, Cosby was criticized and often misquoted as saying he drugged women to rape them. Cosby was never charged or convicted of rape.

He responded “yes” in the deposition to a question of whether he had ever provided a Quaalude to a woman that he was interested in having sex with.

That, he said, is a far cry from surreptitiously slipping someone a drug and, without their consent, engaging in sex.

Cosby said those with such strong opinions should educate themselves, read the deposition and court transcripts for themselves without having mainstream media dictate falsehoods to them.

He suggested that the seven-page ruling by the Supreme Court should be required reading, particularly for those reporting on the case.

“There’s a big smile on my face,” Cosby insisted. “A big smile on my face because I was there. I know what happened, and I’m watching and hearing these fascists and Nazis, and I watched them really come out of the woodworks as termites.”

Cosby and his wife of nearly 60 years, Camille, have donated an estimated more than $200 million to various colleges and universities. That includes Howard University in Washington, where Cosby Show star Phylicia Rashad serves as a dean in the College of Fine Arts.

After the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional Cosby’s trial, conviction, and sentence, Rashad tweeted that justice had finally occurred.

Quickly, however, social media and some at the historically Black university scolded Rashad, forcing her to issue a second statement that included her empathy toward sexual assault victims.

Cosby took issue with the treatment of Rashad.

“They didn’t like what she was doing before,” Cosby noted, regarding Rashad’s early public support of him.

During Cosby’s first trial, a jury selected from Allegheny County, Pa., failed to reach a verdict despite Cosby’s attorney Brian McMonagle declining to call defense witnesses.

The jury in that trial reportedly took an initial 12-0 not guilty vote but was instructed by Judge Steven O’Neill to continue deliberating.

For the 2018 retrial, Cosby auditioned and hired famed attorney Tom Mesereau who successfully defended Michael Jackson and Robert Blake.

Cosby told the Black Press that he remains skeptical about whether he received maximum effort from his lead attorney.

Cosby offered that he disagreed with Mesereau’s decision to select a jury from Montgomery County and called the jurors “imposters of his peers.”

During jury selection, another juror famously said, “we can all go home; he’s guilty.”

District Attorney Kevin Steele successfully argued to keep the juror on the panel despite another potential juror complaining that she heard the statement.

Cosby said that move proved the setup was real.

For many commentators, the elephant in the room remains the 60-women who have made claims that Cosby assaulted them.

Cosby attributed that high number to Gloria Allred, who demanded and advertised that $100 million be put in an account for any alleged victims.

He opined that her scheme ultimately backfired.

“The seven pages by the Supreme Court justices makes too much sense,” Cosby declared. “How about if these 60 women are lying and they’ve been taken care of?”

When asked how he could get through the trials without showing much emotion, Cosby said he thought about many others who were falsely accused.

“The people who have come before me are all I kept seeing regardless of race, color, or creed,” he offered. “Those who were looking for justice before me. Those looking at the laughing White boys who did whatever they did and the jury sitting there winking and smiling.

“I’ve seen this before in a kind of sick, sad way. It is my honor to sit here and watch this become personal.”

Finally, Cosby exclaimed the joy of reuniting with his wife in New York after nearly three years in prison.

“They can say all they want and do all they want,” Cosby stated. “I have a wife who is a fighter. It doesn’t make any difference to her, and she is coming at you straight ahead.”

Advertisement

Latest