Bill Cosby was released from prison Wednesday after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court vacated his sexual assault conviction.
Cosby, 83, was released from SCI Phoenix in Collegeville, Pa., outside Philadelphia, just before 2:30 p.m, state corrections officials told Fox News.
He was seen leaving the prison in a white car shortly afterward and arrived at his home about an hour later to the sounds of a fan shouting "we love you," a protestor chanting "we believe the women" and the whir of a news helicopter flying overhead. He appeared to flash a "peace" sign with his hand as he exited the car.
Bill Cosby, center, and spokesperson Andrew Wyatt, right, approach members of the media gathered outside Cosby's home in Elkins Park, Pa., Wednesday, June 30, 2021, after Pennsylvania's highest court overturned his sex assault conviction. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
Cosby later made a brief appearance outside the home, wearing a T-shirt from a Philadelphia high school he attended and flanked by his attorneys and a spokesperson, but remained silent.
Cosby was "overjoyed," his spokesman, Andrew Wyatt, told reporters outside the home.
"But as we have always said, this is bigger than Bill Cosby," Wyatt added. "This is about reforming the criminal justice system."
The disgraced actor, once known as "America’s Dad," had served more than two years of his three-to-10-year sentence after he was convicted of drugging and molesting a woman at his Cheltenham, Pa. home in 2004.
The state’s highest court threw out the disgraced actor’s conviction earlier Wednesday after finding that District Attorney Kevin Steele, the prosecutor who brought the case against Cosby, violated an agreement to not charge him that previous District Attorney Bruce Castor had made in 2005, though the deal had apparently never been put in writing.
BILL COSBY’S SEX ASSAULT CONVICTION OVERTURNED BY PENNSYLVANIA COURT
The majority of the split justices wrote in their 79-page opinion that Cosby had been counting on that agreement when he gave testimony in a civil case filed by Andrea Constand, whose accusations also later formed the basis of the criminal case against Cosby.
Cosby's attorneys had previously also argued that testimony from five other women who accused Cosby of assaulting them in the 1980s tainted the trial and that those other accusers should not have been allowed to testify. The justices didn't weigh in on that issue.
Bill Cosby's last prison photo was taken in early September 2020. (Pennsylvania Department of Corrections/SCI Phoenix)
Jennifer Bonjean, an attorney for Cosby said that prosecutors shouldn't have tried the case.
"They pulled the rug out from under him because of politics, because of popular opinion," Bonjean said.
Steele, the Montgomery County district attorney who prosecuted Cosby, said in a written statement that Cosby had been freed "on a procedural issue that is irrelevant to the facts of the crime,"
"I want to commend Cosby’s victim Andrea Constand for her bravery in coming forward and remaining steadfast throughout this long ordeal, as well as all of the other women who have shared similar experiences," Steele said. "My hope is that this decision will not dampen the reporting of sexual assaults by victims. Prosecutors in my office will continue to follow the evidence wherever and to whomever it leads. We still believe that no one is above the law — including those who are rich, famous and powerful."
Constand and her attorneys, Dolores Troiani and Bebe Kivitz, called the court's decision "disappointing" and added they were concerned "that it may discourage those who seek justice for sexual assault in the criminal justice system from reporting or participating in" prosecutions.
The actor best known for "The Cosby Show" maintained his innocence and had previously said he’d serve the full sentence rather than admit any guilt over the encounter with Constand. He had been denied parole in May.
Cosby spent his time behind bars at SCI Phoenix, a 3,830-bed, maximum-security state prison that opened in 2018.
Bonjean told the Asociated Press that Cosby is in good health, though he is now legally blind.
Cosby spent his time behind bars at SCI Phoenix, a 3,830-bed, maximum-security state prison that opened in 2018. (Pennsylvania Department of Corrections)
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In a 2019 interview with the National Newspaper Publishers Association, Cosby called his cell a "penthouse" and said he was speaking to other inmates as part of a program called Mann Up to help them reform.
"I don’t belong to the Mann Up Association, but it’s a privilege to come in and speak," he told a reporter at the time. "I never wanted them to lord me up. This is a great privilege."
Fox News' Sasha Savitsky and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
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