One of the two lead attorneys defending former President Donald Trump in his Senate impeachment trial is controversial former Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce L. Castor, who infamously declined to prosecute Bill Cosby in 2005 for sexual assault and was later accused of making a “secret deal” to keep the disgraced comedian out of jail.
Castor, a Republican, served as an elected prosecutor for two terms in the Pennsylvania county, on Montgomery County’s Board of Commissioners, and had a brief stint as the state’s acting attorney general, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. In 2005, when Castor was serving as District Attorney, he declined to prosecute The Cosby Show star for allegedly sexually assaulting Andrea Constand at his Pennsylvania mansion, citing “insufficient, credible and admissible evidence” in a news release at the time, as per the Los Angeles Times.
Videos by PopCulture.com
In 2018, Cosby would be found guilty of three counts of aggravated indecent assault and sentenced to three to ten years in prison. During his pretrial hearings and trial, Castor’s dealings with the celebrity came to light, as District Attorney Kevin Steele accused him of making a “secret agreement” to permit a “wealthy defendant to buy his way out of a criminal case.”
“I thought making Mr. Cosby pay money was the best I was going to be able to set the stage for,” Castor said at the time, as per NBC News. He added, “I was hopeful that I had made Ms. Constand a millionaire.” Cosby’s graphic testimony about his assault of Constand, in a civil suit, including the comedian saying that “the act of the penile entrance is something that I feel the woman will succumb to more of a romance and more of a feeling, not love, but it’s deeper than a playful situation.”
A judge sided with the district attorney’s office in the hearing, an extra blow to Castor after Steele beat him just three months prior in Castor’s election attempt. One of Steele’s main talking points amid the election was Castor’s refusal to prosecute Cosby.
Upon being named Trump’s attorney, Castor said in a statement that he “considers it a privilege” to defend the disgraced former president in his second impeachment case. “The strength of our Constitution is about to be tested like never before in our history. It is strong and resilient. A document written for the ages, and it will triumph over partisanship yet again, and always,” Castor added.
