NORRISTOWN, Pa. — The sexual assault case against Bill Cosby can proceed, a judge ruled Wednesday, saying that prosecutors are not bound by a predecessor's decision 11 years ago not to charge Cosby in the case of a young Temple University staff member who said the entertainer had drugged and molested her at his suburban Philadelphia home.
"I find no basis to grant the relief request," Judge Steven T. O'Neill said from the bench of the Montgomery County Courthouse after a second full day of testimony and bickering in the case.
Cosby's lawyers had sought to have the charges dismissed, arguing during the pretrial hearing before O'Neill that former Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce L. Castor Jr. had made a binding decision in 2005 never to prosecute Cosby.
"A promise of a prosecutor, even an oral promise, is absolutely 100 percent enforceable," Christopher Tayback, one of Cosby's lawyers, told O'Neill.
In testimony Tuesday, Castor had said he too viewed his decision as binding, but the judge disagreed. Although he did not elaborate on his decision, the judge appeared to side with prosecutors who argued Wednesday that the former district attorney had not been authorized to make such a sweeping edict.
"There is no legal authority allowing a district attorney unilaterally to confer transactional immunity," the current district attorney, Kevin R. Steele, told the court Wednesday.
After the ruling, Cosby sat in his chair motionless, looking ahead and stroking his neck. His lawyers and an aide immediately surrounded him, with their hands on the back of his chair.
Based on the judge's ruling, the case will now head toward trial, and the judge set a date for a preliminary hearing March 8. But Cosby's spokesman, Andrew Wyatt, said that Cosby would appeal the judge's decision.
At some point, his lawyers may well file a motion to suppress the testimony that he gave in a civil suit later brought by the woman, Andrea Constand, in 2005.
Prosecutors have cited the deposition given by Cosby in that case, parts of which became public only last summer, as key evidence. In the deposition, Cosby acknowledged obtaining quaaludes as part of his efforts to have sex with women.
A lawyer for Cosby testified Wednesday that he only allowed Cosby to testify in the civil case, without invoking his Fifth Amendment right, because of Castor's promise of immunity.
In her account of what happened in 2004, Constand said she began feeling drained at Cosby's home in the Philadelphia suburbs, and he gave her three pills and some wine to help her relax. Soon, she said, her vision blurred, she had difficulty speaking and Cosby led her to a sofa, where he touched her breasts, penetrated her vagina with his fingers and placed her hand on his erect penis.
Castor testified Tuesday that, while he believed Constand's account, he had declined to prosecute because he questioned if she would make a credible witness.
He cited contact between Constand and Cosby in the year between when she said the incident occurred and when she went to the authorities, including at least one in-person meeting and phone calls between Cosby, Constand and her mother, some of which, he said, had been recorded illegally.
But Constand's lawyers, who testified on Wednesday, have said that Constand and her mother only contacted Cosby once, in January 2015.
Castor said he had hoped that by announcing his decision to not prosecute Cosby, he would help Constand get a measure of justice — and money, in the civil case.
Castor and the sitting district attorney, Steele, ran against each other in an election last fall, and Steele's criticism of how Castor's handled the original Cosby investigation became an issue in the race.
In court papers, Cosby's lawyers said Steele charged Cosby only to fulfill a campaign pledge and sought to have him dismissed as the prosecutor in the case, but O'Neill denied that request on Wednesday as well.
Steele on Wednesday criticized Castor's use of Constand's potential lucrative settlement in a civil case as rationale for not prosecuting Cosby.
"A secret agreement that permits a wealthy defendant to buy his way out of a criminal case isn't right," he told the court.
But Tayback argued that Cosby had never acted like a star seeking special treatment in challenging the case. "He is looking to be treated in exactly the same way any other person would be looking to be treated in this situation," he said.
Cosby has said that the sexual encounter was consensual and has denied the accusations of dozens of other women who have come forward in recent years to accuse him of sexually assaulting them. Many of those women came forward too late to press criminal charges against him because of the statute of limitations. Constand is the only woman whose complaint has resulted in criminal charges.
Castor had been forceful on Tuesday in proclaiming that, as a "sovereign," he had the power to make an immunity decision that was binding on his successors.
But O'Neill had questioned him closely, asking Castor why he believed he had such authority and why he had never written it down.
Castor said that while it was not a formal agreement, his decision to not prosecute had been written down in the form of a signed news release.
In questioning one of Cosby's lawyers involved in the 2005 case, Steele referred to Castor's testimony on Wednesday.
"You would agree with me," he asked the lawyer, John P. Schmitt, "that you never obtained a written agreement from the Commonwealth, from Mr. Castor, that your client would never be prosecuted?"
Schmitt said, "I have a signed statement."
To which Steele replied, "You have a press release."
O'Neill said that the issue of whether one prosecutor could bind his successors to a decision had rarely surfaced before. "I was unable to find any case like this," he said, shortly before issuing his ruling in the case.
Cosby waved at a handful of supporters as he left the courthouse but made no comment before climbing slowly into a black SUV.