Lawyers Make Moves in Two High-Profile Cases

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. 

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.