Cosby plans sex assault talks, accusers’ lawyer cries foul

Boston: Bill Cosby plans to conduct a series of free public seminars about sexual assault this summer, his spokesman said days after a Pennsylvania judge declared a mistrial in the entertainer’s sexual assault trial.

A lawyer for 33 women who have accused former star of the1980s TV hit The Cosby Show of sexual assault criticised the move as an apparent attempt to interfere with his expected retrial on charges of sexually assaulting Andrea Constand at his home in the Philadelphia in 2004.

“I received hundreds of calls from civic organisations and churches requesting for Mr. Cosby to speak to young men and women about the judicial system,” Andrew Wyatt, Cosby’s spokesman, said in an email on Thursday.

Pennsylvania prosecutors plan to re-try the 79-year-old Cosby on charges of drugging and sexually assaulting Constand, after the jury in the first trial failed to reach a verdict.

The case is the only criminal prosecution to emerge from dozens of similar allegations against Cosby, dating as far back as the 1960s, with the other cases too old to prosecute.

The talks could make it harder to pick an unbiased jury for his retrial, said attorney Gloria Allred, who represents the 33 women.

“Mr. Cosby’s so-called workshops appear to be a transparent and slick effort to attempt to influence the jury pool from which jurors will be selected for his second criminal trial,” Allred said in an email.

“Mr. Cosby should understand, however, that this is not about optics. It is about evidence.”