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Lawyers for Cosby appeared to have some help earlier this month when Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf allowed a temporary reprieve for an estimated 1,500 to 1,800 vulnerable and nonviolent prisoners at or close to their release dates.
The only trouble was: Sex offenders in the Keystone State aren’t eligible for reprieves, a corrections spokesperson said.
That rules out Cosby, 82, who’s serving a three- to 10-year sentence in a state prison outside Philadelphia for drugging and sexually assaulting a Temple University employee in 2004.
Elderly and chronically ill inmates have been released from jails and prisons nationwide because of the pandemic.
The better known among them:
- Brooklyn rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine (Daniel Hernandez), 23, who is serving the remaining four months of his two-year racketeering sentence under home confinement with asthma and bouts of bronchitis;
- Tax cheat Michael Cohen, President Trump’s former personal attorney, who is being allowed to finish his three-year sentence for tax evasion and campaign finance violations at home after 14 days in quarantine;
- Michael Avenatti, the 49-year-old attorney who represented porn star Stormy Daniels in lawsuits she filed against President Trump, who a judge allowed to stay at a friend’s house in Los Angeles pending sentencing for trying to extort millions from Nike.
Bigger names haven’t been so fortunate.
Harvey Weinstein, the 68-year-old former movie producer turned convicted rapist, remained in isolation with the coronavirus at the Wende Correctional Facility east of Buffalo.
Among those also having requests rejected by judges is singer R. Kelly (“I Can Fly”), who’s awaiting trial at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Chicago on charges of sexually exploiting a minor and producing child porn.
Lawyers for rapper YNW Melly (Jamell Maurice Demons), who also was confirmed as having the coronavirus, have sought his release while he awaits trial in a double-murder trial in Florida – a death-penalty state.
Then there’s Madoff, who’s serving a 150-year sentence at a federal prison in North Carolina for orchestrating a scam that bilked 4,800 clients out of $64.8 billion, the largest Ponzi scheme in history.
The 81-year-old Madoff has terminal kidney disease, putting him at risk of catching COVID-19, his lawyers say.
In response, Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana petitioned U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr on Monday to deny an early release for Madoff, as well as for others who’ve been convicted of “serious fraudulent crimes."
To let them go, Kennedy wrote, “would be an affront to those affected by their evil schemes and a complete failure in the administration of justice.
“Our efforts should be focused on protecting those who protected us: our parents, grandparents, and military veterans who led crime-free lives,” Kennedy added. “Criminals such as Stanford and Madoff who preyed on the elderly should be the last ones to benefit from the change in circumstances COVID-19 has caused.”
Rulings on both Madoff and Stanford were pending.
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