Bill Cosby, disgraced U.S actor and comedian will not be getting an early release from prison over fears that he is vulnerable to COVID-19.
Cosby‘s legal team had said, that the disgraced comedian is going to be sent home from prison because of the pandemic. However the Department of Corrections says it is not going to happen.
Cosby’s legal team was planning to file a petition to get him out of SCI Phoenix in Pennsylvania, where he’s serving three to 10 years for sexual assault; because they’re afraid of him getting the coronavirus.
But after Pennsylvania’s Gov. Tom Wolf ordered the state’s DOC last week to establish a program to move some prisoners to community corrections facilities or their home; Cosby’s team became so confident he’d be let out that they decided not to even file the papers, page six reports.
His rep Andrew Wyatt said, “We strongly feel that Mr. Cosby will be released and remanded to house arrest in the upcoming weeks. Mr. Cosby is 82 years old; Mr. Cosby has an underlying medical condition blindness” and cannot practice “social distancing; because he has to rely on the aid of others.”
Wyatt claims that Cosby’s team has been “in contact with sources close to [the] governor and they were informed that Gov. Wolf felt that Cosby should be released and remanded to house arrest, due to his age and blindness.”
Cosby not considered at high risk for COVID-19
But a rep for the Pennsylvania DOC denied the claim on the grounds that:
“Based on the criteria exempting sex offenders and knowing his highly publicized case, he would not qualify,” the rep said.
According to the governor’s office, the program “applies to state prison inmates who have been identified as being nonviolent. And who otherwise would be eligible for release within the next nine months. Or who are considered at high risk for complications of coronavirus and are within 12 months of their release.”
One inmate has died of COVID-19 at SCI Phoenix, and 22 inmates have tested positive.
Cosby was convicted in 2018 of sexually assaulting a woman.