Actor Bill Cosby said in a statement this week that the mainstream media are the “real insurrectionists” trying to “demolish the Constitution.”
As The Daily Wire highlighted last Wednesday, a Pennsylvania Appellate Court overturned Cosby’s 2018 sex assault conviction, allowing the actor to walk free after serving just two years of a 3-10 year sentence stemming from an incident in 2004.
Dozens of other women have accused Cosby of harassment, rape, and sexual misconduct over the years, though he has always denied the accusations.
Through a spokesman, Cosby implored Howard University to defend the “Freedom of Speech” of “Cosby Show” actress Phylicia Rashad, who publicly rejoiced when news hit that Cosby would be released.
“Howard University you must support ones [sic] Freedom of Speech (Ms. Rashad), which is taught or suppose [sic] to be taught everyday at that renowned law school, which resides on your campus,” read the statement, put out by longtime Cosby spokesman Andrew Wyatt, Deadline reported.
“This [sic] mainstream media are the Insurrectionists, who stormed the Capitol,” Cosby’s statement continued. “Those same Media Insurrectionists are trying to demolish the Constitution of these United State [sic] of America on this Independence Day.”
“No technicality — it’s a violation of ones [sic] rights & we the people stand in support of Ms. Phylicia Rashad,” the statement added.
Rashad tweeted in relation to Cosby, “FINALLY!!!! A terrible wrong is being righted — a miscarriage of justice is corrected!” The Daily Wire reported on the fallout:
Rashad later deleted the tweet and tempered her initial support with a new post, saying, “I fully support survivors of sexual assault coming forward. My post was in no way intended to be insensitive to their truth. Personally, I know from friends and family that such abuse has lifelong residual effects. My heartfelt wish is for healing.” But she notably did not disavow her initial statement.
This put Howard University, which recently hired Rashad as Dean of Fine Arts, in an awkward position. The school quickly issued a statement distancing itself from Rashad’s views. “Survivors of sexual assault will always be our first priority,” the school said in an Instagram post. “While Dean Rashad has acknowledged in her follow-up tweet that victims must be heard and believed, her initial tweet lacked sensitivity towards survivors of sexual assault.” Howard also said personal positions of University leadership do not reflect its policies.
In a statement posted on Twitter, Constand expressed her disappointment with the Court’s decision, saying it may “discourage those who seek justice for sexual assault in the criminal justice system from reporting or participating in the prosecution of the assailant or may force a victim to choose between filing either a criminal or civil action.”
“On the one hand, the Court acknowledged that the former District Attorney’s decision not to prosecute Mr. Cosby was not a formal agreement and constituted at best a unilateral exercise of prosecutorial discretion not to prosecute at the time,” she went on. “The Court also acknowledged that it agreed with the lower court’s credibility determinations, but nevertheless precluded a future prosecution, which included additional evidence developed in the civil case.”
The Daily Wire’s editor emeritus and podcast host Ben Shapiro offered some legal insight concerning Cosby’s release from prison last week. Shapiro emphasized that while Cosby “on a moral level” deserves to be in jail, his release is legally justified, particularly since we want defendants to trust prosecutors. Shapiro explained that Cosby’s due process was violated; he testified in a civil trial after he was told by prosecution that he would not be potentially incriminating himself since there would be no criminal case. That promise was broken when Cosby was criminally indicted.
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Related: Pennsylvania Court Overturns Bill Cosby Sex Assault Conviction, Actor To Leave Prison