Lawyers: Bill Cosby Now Registered as Blind

They say he won't be able to recognize accusers
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 28, 2016 2:05 AM CDT
Updated Oct 28, 2016 6:21 AM CDT
Lawyers: Bill Cosby Now Registered as Blind
Bill Cosby leaves a pretrial hearing in his criminal sex-assault case at Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown, Pa., on July 7, 2016.   (AP Photo/Matt Rourke))

Bill Cosby is blind and has no hope of recognizing the women who are accusing him of sexual assault, his lawyers argued in a court document filed Thursday. The lawyers, who have repeatedly raised the issue of Cosby's eyesight, say he has now registered with a state commission for the blind in Massachusetts, NBC News reports. "No 79-year-old blind man could possibly defend himself against a claim that he sexually assaulted someone he supposedly met once, half a century ago," they wrote in a document filed in Pennsylvania ahead of a pretrial hearing next week. After he was charged with sexual assault late last year, Cosby attorney Monique Pressley told reporters that Cosby is legally blind and walks with a cane.

The lawyers say that at the Nov. 1 pretrial hearing, they will provide a doctor's note to prove that Cosby is legally blind. He's accused of drugging and assaulting Andrea Constand at his home in 2004. His trial is scheduled for next June, though his attorneys are trying to get his case thrown out first. The hearing next week will deal with issues including whether 13 other women who accuse him of assault will be allowed to testify. Cosby, who is free on $1 million bail, "is an individual who has used his fame and fortune for decades to conceal his crimes and hide his true nature," DA Kevin Steele wrote in a filing last week, per the AP. (The Cosby case prompted California to end its statute of limitations for rape.)

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