News

THURSDAY FEBRUARY 4 2016

CENTREDAILY.COM

MEL EVANS The Associated Press

Actor and comedian Bill Cosby, left, is assisted as he leaves after a court appearance Wednesday in Norristown. There, a
judge refused to drop sexual assault charges against Cosby.

SEXUAL ASSAULT CHARGES

Judge wont toss

case against Cosby
. ........................................................

Common pleas judge says

witness credibility was a
factor
. ........................................................

Cosby, 78, is charged with

drugging and violating
former Temple worker
. ........................................................

BY MARYCLAIRE DALE
AND MICHAEL R. SISAK

The Associated Press

NORRISTOWN

A judge refused to throw

out the sexual assault case
against Bill Cosby on

Wednesday, sweeping
aside a former district
attorneys claim that he
granted the comedian
immunity from prosecution
a decade ago.
Common Pleas Judge
Steven ONeill issued the
ruling after a hard-fought
two-day hearing, saying
witness credibility was a
factor. He did not elaborate.
In another setback for
the defense, the judge also
denied a defense request to
disqualify newly elected
Montgomery County Dis-

trict Attorney Kevin Steele

from the case. Cosbys
lawyers had accused Steele
of making a political football out of Cosby during
the campaign.
Cosby, 78, was arrested
in December and charged
with drugging and violating
former Temple University
athletic department employee Andrea Constand at
his suburban Philadelphia
home in 2004. The TV star
could get up to 10 years in
prison if convicted.
Cosby left the courthouse with a smile and

LOCAL BRIEFS
CHARGES BOUND OVER
IN CAMPUS ELEVATOR
ASSAULT
District Judge Allen
Sinclair bound over all
charges against a Penn
State student accused of
assaulting
another
student in an
elevator on
campus
Saturday.
David
Mikhail
Stepanyan,
Stepanyan
19, is
charged with aggravated
assault, criminal trespassing, unlawful restraint,
simple assault, harassment
and disorderly conduct for
fighting.
Penn State Police Officer
Cyprien Brien testified that
Stepanyan was not a resident of Snyder Hall, where
the alleged assault took
place, and that he followed
the victim into the dorm.
Brien also testified that
Stepanyan and another
male were in the elevator
for at least 18 minutes
continuously pushing the
door open button.
According to Brien, the
entire interaction was
filmed on a camera attached to one of the elevator walls.
That video was introduced as evidence
Wednesday. Cyprien testified that Stepanyan is seen
pulling the victim into an
elevator, punching and
kicking him.
While defense attorney
Richard Katsifis did not
object to the video being
shown, he did object to it
being inducted as evidence.
Katsifis motion was
denied.
MAN ACCUSED
OF STALKING,
HARASSMENT
A State College man was
arrested and arraigned
before District Judge Steven Lachman on Tuesday,
on charges of stalking a
woman and distributing
nude photos of her.
Justin T. Nicholas, 22, of
State College, has been
charged with five misdemeanors, including stalk-

ing, unlawful dissemination of intimate images

and three counts of harassment.
According to the affidavit of probable cause, Nicholas allegedly sent 127
text messages to a woman
between Jan. 14 and 17.
The affidavit alleges he
called the victim 104 times
between this period as
well.
Nicholas allegedly sent
two nude photographs of
the woman to another
person.
Nicholas is a Penn State
student, according to the
universitys online directory.
His preliminary hearing
is scheduled for March 2
ADDITIONAL DETAILS
RELEASED IN FATAL
ROUTE 322 CRASH
State College police
released information
Wednesday regarding the
crash that claimed the life
of a Lemont man and
closed down a portion of
U.S. Route 322 in College
Township two weeks ago.
According to police accident investigators, Earl
Smith, 89, of Lemont, was
traveling west on the
Mount Nittany Expressway
with his wife Betty, 82, on
Jan. 20 when he attempted
to pull off the expressway
in order to make a U-turn
in a nearby PennDOT
turnaround.
Smith pulled in front of a
tractor-trailer driven by
Petro Petryuk, 31, of

Downers Grove, Ill., who

struck Smiths car on the
drivers side. The car spun
around and ended up facing east.
Several witnesses corroborated the story, police
said, saying they saw the
car move left in front of
the truck. The car was
pushed a total of 118 feet
from point of impact to its
resting spot.
Route 322 was closed
temporarily and Alpha Fire
Company was called to
extract Smith from the
vehicle before he was
flown via Life Flight to
UPMC Altoona, police
said. Blair County Coroner
Paul Kearns confirmed
Smith had died on Jan. 25.
No drugs or alcohol were
found at the scene of the
accident, police said. Petryuk will not be charged.
FERGUSON TOWNSHIP
RESCHEDULES COFFEE
AND CONVERSATION
The Ferguson Township
Coffee and Conversation
at Baileyville Grange Community Hall has been rescheduled for 6 to 7:30
p.m. Feb. 17.
Residents with questions
about winter operations or
township services are invited to join township staff,
a news release said, including Manager Mark
Kunkle and Assistant Manager Dave Pribulka. The
hall is located at 210 Deibler Road, Pennsylvania
Furnace.
The original Coffee and

waved several times but

had no comment. His lawyers put their arms on him
to comfort him.
The next step is a preliminary hearing March 8 to
determine whether prosecutors have enough evidence to put him on trial.
The charges represented
an about-face by the District Attorneys Office.
In 2005, then-District
Attorney Bruce Castor
decided the case was too
flawed to prosecute. But
Castors successors reopened the investigation last
year after Cosbys lurid,
decade-old testimony from
Constands civil suit was
unsealed at the request of
The Associated Press and
after dozens of other women came forward with
similar accusations that
destroyed Cosbys nice-guy
image as Americas Dad.
At the hearing this week,
Cosbys lawyers tried to get

Conversation was canceled

during the major snowfall
on Jan. 23, the release said.
FERGUSON TOWNSHIP
TO INTERVIEW FOR
VACANT SEAT
Ferguson Township
supervisors will begin interviewing applicants for
the vacant Ward 3 seat
next week, according to a
news release by the township.
Township Manager Mark
Kunkle announced on Jan.
18 that the board had begun accepting applications
for the position a few days
earlier. The township
stopped accepting applications Monday.
A total of six applications
were received, the release
said. Applying for the twoyear appointment were
Steven Balkey, Drew Clemson, Rita Graef, Andrea
Harman, Bradley Lunsford
and Michael Radis.
The Board of Supervisors
will interview the applicants next week, the re-

the case thrown out with

help from Castor, who
testified that he intended
to forever close the door on
prosecuting the comedian.
He said he considered his
decision binding on his
successors.
Similarly, Cosbys lawyers said they never would
have let the TV star testify
in the civil case if they
didnt believe criminal
charges were off the table.
In this case, the prosecution should be stopped in
its tracks, Cosby lawyer
Chris Tayback argued.
Really what were talking
about here is honoring a
commitment.
Steele questioned whether Castor ever made such
an agreement, since it was
never put in writing on a
legal document and the
Cosby attorney with whom
Castor dealt is now dead.
Steele argued that in any
case, Castor had no legal
authority to make such a
deal.
A secret agreement that
allows a wealthy defendant
to buy his way out of a
criminal case isnt right,
Steele told the judge.
On the stand, Castor
defended his decision not
to bring charges, citing
among other things Constands yearlong delay in
reporting the allegations,
her continued contact with
Cosby, and suggestions
that she and her mother
might have tried to extort
the comic.
The former DA said he
made the no-prosecution
commitment in hopes of
prodding Cosby to testify
in Constands lawsuit without invoking his Fifth
Amendment right against
self-incrimination. In the
end, Cosby testified, denying he assaulted Constand
but admitting among other
things that he obtained
quaaludes to give to women he wanted to seduce,
and Constand eventually
settled for an undisclosed
amount.

lease said, and consider

making an appointment at
the next regular supervisors meeting on Feb. 16.
Supervisors will not be
taking public comments
concerning the appointment during the meeting,
the release said. However,
anyone wishing to provide
input on the selection process can submit comments
by email to the supervisors.
Supervisors emails can
be found on the township
website at twp.ferguson.
pa.us.
We are delighted that
so many Ferguson Township residents are willing to
step up to serve the township, Chairman Steve
Miller said in the release.
The current board members are looking forward to
interviews with all the
applicants.

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CHILD PORN CASE

Trial
date
set for
Lee
. ........................................................

Lee may go to court in

March
. ........................................................

Harris Township man

remains incarcerated
. ........................................................

BY LORI FALCE

lfalce@centredaily.com

A trial date has been set

for Christopher Lee.
Again.
The former Harris Township supervisor and exCEO of Boal Mansion and
Columbus Chapel has been
awaiting trial on charges of
coercion and enticement,
transportation of minors,
the receipt, possession and
production of child pornography and tampering with
evidence. The original
charges in the case were
filed in October 2014.
On Monday, Judge Matthew Brann filed a schedule in the U.S. District
Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, setting up the case for a
March 7 trial and a Feb. 29
pretrial conference.
But will the case finally
see a courtroom?
Lee was first scheduled
for trial in December 2014.
That was delayed and it
was reset for February
2015.
The defense asked for a
continuance, pushing the
case to the April 2015 term
of court.
After additional charges
were filed in March 2015,
the case was again bumped
back, this time to June
2015, over the defenses
objections. Then in May
2015, the court reset the
clock again for a July 2015
trial.
There were more delays.
Then in September, there
were more charges. And
even more delays.
There were also more
motions.
Defense attorney Kyle
Rude has asked for bail for
his client repeatedly during
the past year. He has lost
on those motions, but has
won on another, getting
Brann to sever the charges,
allowing the child pornography counts to be tried
separately. However, court
records show no ruling
from Brann on Rudes
motion for severance after
the latest round of charges
were filed.
Lee remains in custody.
Lori Falce: 814-235-3910,
@LoriFalce

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