Bill Cosby will be set free because of a deal he made with a DA who went on to represent Trump in his 2nd impeachment trial

• Bill Cosby is set to walk free due to a 2005 deal he made with a prosecutor who later represented Trump.
• The former DA Cosby made the agreement with was Bruce Castor.
• Castor went on to represent Trump in his second impeachment trial.
• See more stories on Insider’s business page.

Bill Cosby’s 2018 sexual assault conviction was thrown out by Pennsylvania’s highest court on Wednesday, which was a product of a deal he made with a previous prosecutor that prevented Cosby from being charged.

In 2005, then-Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce Castor made a written agreement with Cosby that he would not be criminally charged in a case involving former Temple University employee Andrea Constand – who Cosby was accused of drugging and sexually assaulting in 2004. Under the deal, Cosby was asked to testify in a civil lawsuit filed by Constand in exchange for avoiding prosecution.

Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that the deal facilitated by Castor should have prevented Cosby from being charged in the case that ultimately landed him behind bars.

Cosby, 83, has spent the past two years in prison. He was serving a 10-year prison sentence for aggravated indecent assault after being convicted in the 2004 rape of Constand, but is now set to walk free because of Castor. The Pennsylvania court’s decision to let Cosby out of prison comes after the ex-comedian was recently denied parole for refusing to participate in a therapy program for sex offenders.

Castor was briefly in the national spotlight in early 2021 when he served as one of former President Donald Trump’s impeachment lawyers. He was mocked by legal experts and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle over his rambling, incoherent performance during the trial.

-Jan Wolfe (@JanNWolfe) June 30, 2021

Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, for example, at the time described being “really stunned” by Castor, adding, “I couldn’t figure out where he was going.”

Alan Dershowitz, who was on Trump’s legal team during his first impeachment trial, excoriated Castor over his handling of the trial.

“There is no argument. I have no idea what he is doing,” Dershowitz said in an appearance on the right-wing outlet Newsmax amid the trial back in February. “That’s not the kind of argument I would have made, I’ll tell you that.”