Video Transcript
Denise Nakano: Tomorrow will be a key day in the criminal case against Bill Cosby.
Jim Rosenfield: Cosby’s lawyers will go before a judge in Montgomery County and they will argue the charges against him should be dropped. Their argument centers around a supposed deal made with prosecutors back in 2005. They said Cosby agreed to testify in a civil lawsuit and in exchange, that testimony would not be used to pursue criminal charges. Listen to what the former district attorney told NBC 10 last year.
Bruce Castor: Created the scenario where he would have to answer questions under oath and obviously they got the information that they needed and she was compensated monetarily.
Jim Rosenfield: Well, we want to bring in our legal expert now, Attorney Enrique Latoison.
Denise Nakano: Enrique, you heard what Bruce Castor just said but he doesn’t appear to have any agreement in writing. How unusual is it that there’s nothing in writing?
Enrique Latoison: Well, it’s very unusual. This is basically what the argument is of the Montgomery County district attorney’s office. They’re basically saying, listen, an immunity or an agreement not to prosecute is done in a very specific way. It needs to be in writing. It needs to be signed by a judge. It needs to be signed by the parties.
District attorney’s office is basically saying you made the mistake of believing that you aren’t going to be prosecuted just because you weren’t being prosecuted currently and now of course the Cosby camp is saying listen, listen to what Castor said. Castor said that he created the scenario. So he put us in a position to rely on this and he wanted for the civil case to be able to go forward and we relied on it. We took what he said and he is the actual district attorney. He’s not an assistant district attorney and because of what he said, we believed it and we went on and we testified. He created the scenario as he said and the scenario went through.
Jim Rosenfield: All right. The judge is going to hear directly from Castor tomorrow. Enrique, if this deposition is kept out of the case, could this case move forward anyway without it?
Enrique Latoison: Yes, it could. Now you still have the actual merits of the case. The judge has to make a determination of whether or not the deposition could be used as the prosecution in their case-in-chief. However, you have to remember if Bill Cosby testifies and Bill Cosby says, “Listen, I never used Quaaludes,” or “I never gave her drugs,” or “I don’t know anything to do with any of this,” the prosecution could still stand up and use his deposition as a prior inconsistent statement that he made under oath. They could impeach him on it. They can still cross-examine him on it.
So either way, even if the judge says you can’t use the statement in the prosecution’s case-in-chief, it doesn’t mean you can’t possibly use it to impeach him if he says something different in his testimony.
Denise Nakano: Well it would be very interesting what the judge decides in tomorrow’s hearing. Thank you Enrique Latoison for joining us.
Jim Rosenfield: And NBC 10 of course, we will be inside the courtroom for tomorrow’s hearing. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter for updates as we get them, plus full coverage on all of our newscasts.
Denise Nakano: And coming up next NBC 10 talks to Carli Lloyd live as she gets ready to receive another honor here in Philadelphia.
Contact Enrique Latoison
(610) 999-1439