Assessment board says Bill Cosby is a sexually violent predator; DA asks judge to decide
Bill Cosby/Randy Miramontez (Shutterstock.com.)
A district attorney in Pennsylvania has asked the judge who presided at Bill Cosby’s sexual assault trial to decide whether the comedian is a “sexually violent predator.”
Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele made the request Tuesday after the Pennsylvania Sexual Offenders Assessment Board evaluated Cosby and determined he is a sexually violent predator, report the Legal Intelligencer, the New York Times, Philly.com and USA Today.
Cosby, 81, was convicted in April on three counts of aggravated indecent assault for the 2004 assault of Temple University employee Andrea Constand.
If Judge Steven O’Neill upholds the assessment board’s finding, Cosby will have to register as a sexual offender and participate in monthly counseling and treatment. Pennsylvania law defines a sexually violent predator as someone with “a mental abnormality or personality disorder that makes the person likely to engage in predatory sexually violent offenses.”
Cosby’s new lawyer, Joseph Green Jr., said a psychologist who evaluated the actor and comedian for the board had relied on “irrelevant and improper” information, and there was no cross-examination, according to the Times. Green told the Intelligencer he has filed a motion that contends the state’s sexual offender registration law is unconstitutional.
