Bill Cosby: judge determines fate today

Bill Cosby is set to face one of his sexual assault accusers today when a judge in Pennsylvania determines if there is sufficient evidence to open a criminal case against the disgraced comedian.

Andrea Constand, a former Temple University employee, accuses Cosby of drugging and then sexually assaulting her at his home outside of Philadelphia in 2004.

The two reached an out-of-court settlement in 2006. Cosby maintains the encounter was consensual.

In seeking to have the charges thrown out, the entertainer’s lawyers argued that a decade-old secret deal with a then-prosecutor had promised Cosby immunity from the charges in exchange for his testimony in a related civil case.

However, Cosby’s testimony came back to haunt him, when a judge made public a legal brief that contained excerpts in which he admitted buying Quaaludes, a sedative, to use on women for sex.

The current prosecutor, Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele, cited the testimony as a reason he reopened the investigation in Constand’s case.

Cosby was formally charged on December 30.

Both Constand and Cosby are expected to be in the courtroom for the evidentiary hearing on Tuesday, while there is the possibility Constand could also testify.

Cosby’s lawyers had argued that Kevin Steele’s decision to prosecute the case was political and stemmed from public promises he made during a successful election campaign in 2015.

Dozens of women have come forward since November 2014 with strikingly similar claims that Cosby sexually assaulted them, in most cases drugging them first.

The accusations have shattered Cosby’s reputation as a trusted American public figure.

Aside from the Constand case, nearly all of the other claims fell outside of statutes of limitation for prosecutors to file criminal charges. (