This article is more than 9 months old

This article is more than 9 months old

A Pennsylvania appeals court has rejected Bill Cosby’s bid to overturn his sexual assault conviction over the trial judge’s decision to let five other accusers testify.

The superior court ruling was being closely watched because Cosby was the first celebrity tried and convicted in the #MeToo era. The same issue has been hard-fought in pre-trial hearings before movie mogul Harvey Weinstein’s sexual assault trial.

‘I was shocked by the verdict’: Gloria Allred, lawyer for 33 of Bill Cosby’s accusers Read more

Cosby’s lawyers in his appeal said the trial judge had improperly allowed the five women to testify at last year’s retrial although he had let just one woman testify at the first trial in 2017.

But the superior court said Pennsylvania law allows the testimony if it shows Cosby had a “signature” pattern of drugging and molesting women. He can now ask the state supreme court to consider his appeal.

Cosby, 82, has been serving a three- to 10-year prison term for a 2004 assault on Andrea Constand at his suburban Philadelphia home, which he deemed consensual.

His lawyers also argued that he had a binding promise from a former prosecutor that he would never be charged in the case and could testify freely at a deposition in Constand’s related lawsuit.

He was arrested a decade later, after a federal judge unsealed portions of the deposition at the request of the Associated Press and new prosecutors reopened the criminal case.

In arguments in Harrisburg in August, the three-judge superior court panel asked why Cosby’s lawyers did not get a written immunity agreement and have it approved by a judge, instead of relying on an oral promise.

“This is not a low-budget operation we were operating here. They had an unlimited budget,” said superior court judge John T Bender, who questioned whether any court would have approved the deal.

O’Neill had allowed just one other accuser at Cosby’s first trial in 2017, when the jury deadlocked. His decision to let five other accusers testify came after more than 60 women accused Cosby of sexual misconduct. Prosecutors asked to call 19 of them. Cosby’s lawyers called his later decision to let more women testify arbitrary and prejudicial.

Bender appeared to agree with O’Neill’s logic in letting some take the stand.

“The reality of it is, he gives them drugs and then he sexually assaults them. And in four out of the five, those were in mentor situations,” Bender said.

Kristen L Weisenberger, representing Cosby, said one of the women wasn’t even sure she was sexually assaulted. Prosecutors said that was how Cosby planned it.

The long-married Cosby, once beloved as America’s Dad for his TV role as Dr Cliff Huxtable on the hugely popular sitcom The Cosby Show, has acknowledged having sexual contact with a string of younger women, many of whom came to him for career advice and took alcohol or pills he offered them.

He and his lawyers and agents have suggested that many of the accusers were gold diggers seeking money or fame. He told a news outlet in November that he expects to serve the maximum 10-year sentence if he loses the appeal, because he would never express remorse to the parole board.

Cosby agreed to pay Constand, a former Temple University basketball team manager, about $3.4m to settle her lawsuit. Following his conviction, his insurance company settled at least nine other defamation lawsuits filed by accusers for undisclosed sums.