One of former President Donald Trump’s new impeachment attorneys is a former Pennsylvania prosecutor who refused to charge Bill Cosby with sexual assault.
Bruce L. Castor Jr., hired by Trump last weekend to represent him in his upcoming senate trial, was the top prosecutor in Montgomery County from 2000 to 2008. In 2005, Andrea Constand reported that Cosby had been drugged and sexually assaulted. her last year. But Castor refused to sue Cosby.
In 2014, after more than a dozen Cosby prosecutors came forward, Castor defended his decision not to prosecute a criminal case, suggesting inconsistencies in Constand’s report. (He said he thought that Constand was “likely a victim of sexual assault,” but that “probably won’t win criminal trials.”)
The following year, when Castor ran to return as Montgomery district attorney, Constand sued Castor for defamation, making Castor’s handling of the Cosby case a major issue in the election.
Castor lost to Kevin Steele, a Democrat.
Castor, in turn, sued Constand, claiming her trial had sabotaged his election chances; the lawsuit was dismissed in 2018, days before Constand testified in Cosby’s criminal trial.
Constand and Castor settled her defamation claim in 2019.
Steele pursued and won a conviction from Cosby, who was sentenced to three to 10 years in prison in 2018.
The Washington Post reported on Sunday that Castor and David Schoen were hired by Trump after the former president’s previous legal team, led by Karl “Butch” Bowers, abruptly parted ways with him for insisting that the 2020 election was “stolen”. goods.
According to the report, Trump wanted them to advocate at the impeachment trial that he actually won the election.
Schoen, a lawyer in Long Island, NY whose previous clients were Roger Stone, had met Jeffrey Epstein, reportedly to discuss how Epstein would defend himself against allegations of sexual abuse against dozens of girls. Days later, Epstein was found dead in his prison cell. His death was labeled a suicide.
Schoen has promoted a conspiracy theory that Epstein may have been murdered.
In 2007, Epstein quietly entered into a “non-prosecution deal” with Alexander Acosta, then the US attorney in Florida, and avoided federal charges in a related case involving the sex trafficking of underage girls.
Acosta, who became Trump’s labor secretary, resigned in 2019 amid the fallout from his beloved deal with Epstein after it was revealed by the Miami Herald.
Trump’s impeachment trial begins on February 9.
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