Earlier this year, the jury in Bill Cosby's sexual assault trial called the verdict "deadlocked" which ultimately led to a mistrial. However, the prosecution later said that they'll be seeking a retrial on the case. While the judge of the case said that the retrial would begin on November 6th of this year, news later came out that Bill Cosby's defense lawyer would be dropping out of the case. It was later revealed that Bill Cosby would actually be getting Michael Jackson's attorney that defended him during the child molestation trial as apart of his defense team. Today, they were due back in court for the pre-trial of the case. While Cosby and his team requested more time, the judge has honored it.
Judge Steven O'Neill has said that the defense team will be needing much more time to catch up to the case. And with that in mind, he decided to push the retrial from November 6th, 2017 to in between March 15th to April 1st, 2018. The judge said that for anyone to be able to go through 18 months worth of documents before the former trial date would be impossible.
Bill Cosby is currently facing trial for accusations against Temple University basketball manager Andrea Constand for allegedly drugging and raping her at his home. He has claimed his innocence throughout the trial and has said that the encounter was consensual. He's facing three counts of aggravated assault.
Bill Cosby's new defense team will consist of Thomas Mesereau, who defended Michael Jackson as well as a former federal prosecutor, Kathleen Bliss and Sam Silver who works in the law school at the University of Pensylvania as a lecturer.
Thusfar, it seems that at least Thomas Mesereau is pretty confident in the outcome of this trial. In a run in with TMZ last week, he said that the case against Cosby is a waste of time. He later said that he thinks the case against Cosby is weak and that they should just "let him live his life and drop this whole thing."
We'll keep you updated on any more information that develops.
