A judge in Pennsylvania ruled Tuesday that Bill Cosby will go to trial on sexual assault charges next June rather than this fall as expected.
Judge Steven O'Neill said Cosby's lead defense lawyer is "extraordinarily overbooked," and that the criminal trial, stemming from an encounter in 2004 with a Temple University employee, has to be moved to June 5, 2017. He made his ruling after a hearing in which Cosby's attorneys tried to argue that key evidence in the case should be thrown out. Earlier in the day, prosecutors filed to include at a future trial the testimony of 13 additional women who have accused Cosby of similar assaults. While the trial's start has been delayed, District Attorney Kevin Steele said he is ready to start choosing a jury on Wednesday.
Andrea Constand claims that in 2004, Cosby drugged and assaulted her, while Cosby says their encounter was consensual. She reported the alleged assault in 2005, but the district attorney at the time decided there wasn't enough evidence to put Cosby on trial. Steele maintains there is new evidence in the case, primarily a taped conversation between Cosby and Constand's mother and Cosby's deposition from the civil suit Constand filed against him in 2005, where he said he obtained drugs to give to women he wanted to have sex with, USA Today reports. O'Neill has not yet ruled on if that evidence will be admitted.
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