There are some developments in both the criminal court cases
pending against actor Bill Cosby and Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen
Kane, with lawyers either withdrawing or joining the defense teams.
Los Angeles lawyers Christopher Tayback and Joseph Sarles
are out as part of Cosby’s defense team, filing petitions on Tuesday in
Montgomery County Court to withdraw their appearances. Tayback and Sarles, of
the Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan firm did not expound on their reasons
for withdrawing from the four-member defense team.
Lead defense lawyer Brian J. McMonagle, of Philadelphia, and
Monique Pressley, of Washington, D.C., will continue to represent Cosby, who is
facing sex assault-related charges in connection with an alleged encounter he
had with a woman at his Cheltenham home in 2004.
Just last week, it was Tayback who did much of the arguing
in court on behalf of Cosby during a hearing on defense requests to dismiss
charges or to grant Cosby a new preliminary hearing.
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| Bill Cosby/ Submitted Photo |
During the hearing, Tayback,
argued Cosby’s “due process rights” were violated when prosecutors relied on
so-called “hearsay” evidence to establish the elements of the charged offenses
without providing Cosby the chance to confront and cross-examine his alleged
accuser at his May 24 preliminary hearing.
The judge rejected the defense arguments, allowing Cosby’s case
to move to trial, which presumably is months away.
In Kane’s alleged perjury case, Philadelphia lawyer
Douglas K. Rosenblum joined the defense team as co-counsel, according to
documents filed this week in county court. Rosenblum, of the firm Pietragallo
Gordon Alfano Bosick & Raspanti, is well-known to county courthouse
observers having once been employed as a county prosecutor.
Rosenblum joins defense lawyers Gerald L. Shargel, Seth C.
Farber, and Ross M. Kramer, of the New York law firm of Winston & Strawn,
and Scranton lawyer Amil Minora on Kane’s defense team.
Kane faces an Aug. 8 trial on charges of perjury,
obstructing administration of law, abuse of office and false swearing in
connection with allegations she orchestrated the illegal disclosure of
confidential investigative information and secret grand jury information to the
media and then engaged in acts designed to conceal and cover up her alleged
conduct.
