According to US media outlets, Cosby’s conviction was overturned after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court found an agreement with a previous prosecutor that would have prevented Cosby from being criminally charged in the case.
The 83-year-old Cosby, who was once beloved as “America’s Dad”, was convicted of drugging and molesting the Temple University sports administrator Andrea Constand at his suburban estate in 2004.
He was charged in late 2015, when a prosecutor armed with newly unsealed evidence – Cosby’s damaging deposition from her lawsuit – arrested him days before the 12-year statute of limitations expired.
Cosby’s spokesman Andrew Wyatt, who traveled to the prison to get Cosby, said, “We want to thank the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. This is what we have been fighting for and this is justice and justice for black America.”
“This is the justice Mr. Cosby has been fighting for. They saw the light,” Wyatt said, according to NBC News. “He was given a deal, and he had immunity. He should have never been charged.”
The justices said that overturning the conviction, and barring any further prosecution, “is the only remedy that comports with society’s reasonable expectations of its elected prosecutors and our criminal justice system.”
