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AN INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER SERVING THE GW COMMUNITY SINCE 1904

The GW Hatchet

Serving the GW Community since 1904

The GW Hatchet

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Officials name senior vice president, chief of staff
By Fiona Riley, Assistant News Editor • March 26, 2024

Cosby returns to court in June

GW basketball player Attila Cosby will return to court June 25 to face nine counts of misdemeanor sexual abuse, theft and weapons possession, a D.C. Superior Court judge decided March 29, according to court documents.

Cosby faces a maximum of nearly four-and-half years in prison if convicted.

GW Athletic Director Jack Kvancz said Saturday he was unaware the case had been re-opened. GW athletes who face serious charges are usually suspended from their team, Kvancz said.

The charges, which were brought January 26, stem from an early morning May 15, 2000 incident at Cosby’s Guthridge Hall room, where he brought a 46-year-old woman and engaged in oral sex, according to Cosby’s testimony at a July 7 hearing. The woman was convicted of prostitution twice in the early 1980s. At the July hearing, Judge Lee F. Satterfield dismissed a felony sexual abuse charge against Cosby.

Satterfield ruled that the prosecution failed to establish probable cause, meaning the prosecution failed to prove it was likely that Cosby committed the offense.

The prosecution alleged at the July hearing that Cosby forced the woman, a crack-cocaine user he picked up at New Jersey Avenue and P Street, to perform oral sex on him at gunpoint and then sodomized her with a broomstick.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office re-opened the case by charging Cosby with only misdemeanors, which do not require a grand jury indictment, rather than pursue felony charges through the indictment process.

In the District, defendants can request a jury trial if any single charge
carries a maximum punishment of more than 180 days of incarceration.

Cosby faces two counts of misdemeanor sexual abuse for allegedly engaging in a “sexual act . without (the complainant’s) permission,” two counts of attempted threats and simple assault, according to court documents. He also faces two counts of attempted possession of a prohibited weapon for allegedly possessing a gun and using a broomstick as a weapon. Cosby also faces two counts of second-degree theft related to a dispute over a roll of quarters and $20 the prosecution alleged Cosby stole from the complainant.

Channing Phillips, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office, said while he could not discuss the case’s details, the prosecution usually re-opens cases like Cosby’s after finding more evidence. At the July preliminary hearing, the prosecution did not call the complainant to the stand because she could not be located.

Geneza Couser, the mother of Cosby’s girlfriend, said Cosby would not comment. Cosby lived at Couser’s residence during the summer.

Cosby transferred to GW last spring after a short stay at the University of New Mexico. He was suspended from the University of Pittsburgh basketball team as a sophomore in 1999 after he allegedly punched an assistant coach, according to The Washington Post.

“I just heard about it,” Kvancz said about the new charges Saturday, adding that he would research the case Monday and then determine Cosby’s status on the basketball team.

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