Bill Cosby, recently released from prison after filing a successful appeal, is considering a lawsuit against Pennsylvania.Andrew Wyatt, a spokesman for the 84-year old comedian, said that Cosby’s legal team may file a “wrongful imprisonment” complaint,” seeking recompense for the two years Cosby spent behind bars.Cosby, notes Face2FaceAfrica, was convicted of several counts of aggravated assault for drugging and then sexually assaulting former basketball player Andrea Constand in 2004. He had also been accused of sexually assaulting or otherwise harassing numerous other women.While Cosby escaped accountability from most of his accusers, the Constand assault landed him a three-to-ten-year prison sentence.However, Cosby’s legal team mounted an aggressive offense.On June 30th, the comedian’s attorneys announced that Cosby’s sentence had been overturned, and that he was leaving prison the same day.Critically, Cosby’s conviction was not overturned because the court believed he had not committed any crime. Rather, his lawyers were able to demonstrate a “process violation”: Cosby’s team made an agreement with a previous state prosecutor that he would not be charged in the Constand case.

Bill Cosby; image courtesy of The World Affairs Council of Philadelphia via Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org. (CCA-BY-2.0).

Nevertheless, that prosecutor’s successor brought charges against Cosby after details of Constand’s civil lawsuit against the actor were made public.Now that Cosby has been vindicated—at least before the judiciary, if not the court of public opinion—he is reportedly seeking payment for the time he had to spend imprisoned. Spokesman Andrew Wyatt suggested that Cosby is hoping to obtain “a couple of hundred grand” in damages.Speaking on The Dominick Nati Show, Wyatt said Cosby and his legal team are looking over all available options.“We are looking at what recourse, what legal recourse we can take against the state of Pennsylvania,” Wyatt said. “We are looking at all legal angles for those things right now.”After being prompted to explain what the former comedian wants, Wyatt told Nati that Cosby should be compensated for every day he had to spend behind bars.“He’s owed money. It’s a lot of owed money,” Wyatt said. “Our attorneys are filing paperwork now. [Cosby] is owed a lot of money.”Face2FaceAfrica notes that, in Pennsylvania’s 2021-2022 budget plan, Gov. Tom Wolf aired a proposal that would pay wrongfully incarcerated people up to $50,000 for each year they were locked up.Wyatt, adds Page Six, further criticized attorneys Gloria Allred and Allred’s daughter, Lisa Bloom, who represented several of the more than 60 women who stepped forward to accuse Cosby of sexual harassment.“I think her and her daughter have an axe to grind against Black men,” Wyatt said of Allred and Bloom, going so far as to suggest the high-profile lawyers spearheaded some sort of “extortion scheme” against Cosby.Wyatt’s comments provoked a strong rebuke from Allred, who observed that her clients already won big against Cosby in a defamation suit.“Any allegation of extortion is defamatory,” Allred said, “and appears to be an attempt by Mr. Cosby’s representative to deflect attention away from the allegations by more than 60 women who have accused Mr. Cosby of victimizing them.”

Sources

Bill Cosby freed from prison, his sex conviction overturnedCosby wants payback as he mulls lawsuit against Pennsylvania over prison time‘He’s owed money’ – Cosby to seek compensation for his prison time, spokesperson saysReport: Bill Cosby considering lawsuit against Pennsylvania for prison sentence