Camille Cosby On Husband Bill Cosby’s Appeal and What She Thinks #MeToo Gets Wrong
The wife of embattled comedian and actor Bill Cosby is remaining in solidarity with her husband and is happy with him winning the right to appeal his 2018 sexual assault conviction. But she was also defiant of the #MeToo movement and outlined what she said were racial overtones in their narrative around him.
Camille Cosby told ABC News on Tuesday (June 23) that she was given a feeling of “hopefulness.”
“Finally there is the state’s highest court that has said ‘wait a minute, there’s something wrong here, they can be considered for an appeal,’ “ she said. “I’m very, very pleased. It’s not 100 percent, but now I’m looking at something that is possible. Possible for vindication. That is the goal.”
She said she speaks to her husband each day, but has not seen him in prison. “I do not want to see my husband in that kind of an environment and he doesn’t want me to see him in that kind of an environment.”
Cosby, 82, is currently serving a three-to-ten year sentence after a jury convicted him of drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand at his home in 2004. Defense attorneys argued during the trial that the prosecution should not have been allowed to call five other accusers to testify about encounters with Cosby, as the statute of limitations had passed on those incidents.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has agreed to review this decision, as well as whether the jury should have heard evidence that Cosby had given quaaludes to women in the past.
The court will also examine Cosby's claim that he had an agreement with a former prosecutor that he would never be charged in the case if he agreed to testify in Constand's 2006 civil lawsuit.
Camille Cosby said in the interview that racism is part of why he was convicted, and said the women who testified against him offered no proof of his guilt. She also said she was unconcerned about the #MeToo movement’s reaction to the appeal.
“First of all, I don’t care what they feel,” she said. “The #MeToo movement, and movements like them have intentional ignorance pertaining to the history in particular of white women, who have from the very beginning accused Black males of sexual assault without any proof whatsoever. No proof anywhere on the face of the earth.”
The next steps in appeal include setting a briefing schedule and then a date for oral arguments to be heard before the high court.
“The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has narrowed the issues on appeal, limiting them to prior bad acts and the sovereign edict," said Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele, according to USA Today. "We look forward to briefing and arguing these issues and remain confident in the Trial Court and Superior Court’s previous decisions.”
