Bill Cosby retrial for sexual assault to start November

Legendary comedian Bill Cosby will face retrial on three charges of assault as from November 6.

Judge Steven O’Neill of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, gave the ruling on Thursday.

Cosby stood trial in June on three charges of aggravated indecent assault for allegedly drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand in January 2004.

The comedian pleaded not guilty to the charges.

A mistrial was declared in the case after jurors were unable to reach an unanimous verdict on any of the charges.

O’Neill has now ordered attorneys to submit jury selection questions and instructions.

During the first trial, Constand had testified that Cosby gave her pills that made her powerless to his advances.

“In my head, I was trying to get my hands to move or my legs to move, but I was frozen and those [mental] messages didn’t get there. I was very limp, so I wasn’t able to fight him anyway. I wanted it to stop,” she had said.

But Cosby, though portions of a deposition he gave in 2005 and 2006, claimed that he gave her Benadryl to relax before having consensual sexual intercourse.

Cosby said, “I don’t hear her say anything. And I don’t feel her say anything. And so I continue and I go into the area that is somewhere between permission and rejection. I am not stopped”.

The jury, composing of seven men and five women, deliberated for over 50 hours without result.