Cosby team triumphant, but retrial, lawsuits loom

Associated Press

NORRISTOWN, PA.

Legal experts say prosecutors in Bill Cosby’s sexual assault case are likely to reshape their case for the second trial.

Prosecutors said minutes after a judge declared the mistrial Saturday that they will retry the 79-year-old actor and comedian.

The jury deliberated over six days without reaching a verdict on charges Cosby drugged and molested Andrea Constand at his home near Philadelphia in 2004.

Prosecutors might ask the judge to reconsider his ruling that allowed just one of Cosby’s 60 other accusers to testify. But they may first want to know what issues hung up the jury.

The juror names remain shielded from the public under a protective order that several news outlets have challenged. Judge Steven O’Neill could revisit the issue as early as Monday. He advised jurors when the trial ended, after a week of testimony and 52 hours of deliberations, that they need not discuss the case, even as the public debates whether age, race, gender or other issues separated them.

“It can never be clearer that if you speak up, you could be chilling the justice system in the future if jurors are needed in this case,” Judge O’Neill told them.