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Camille Cosby: 'This is mob justice, not real justice'

The tone of her statement underscored the fiercely protective role Camille Cosby has played in shaping her husband's career and public image for more than five decades.

Bill Cosby, left, smiles as he arrives at the Montgomery County Courthouse with his wife, Camille, for his sexual assault trial on  April 24, 2018.
Bill Cosby, left, smiles as he arrives at the Montgomery County Courthouse with his wife, Camille, for his sexual assault trial on April 24, 2018.Read moreJOSE F. MORENO / Staff Photographer

In a blistering attack, Bill Cosby's wife on Thursday called for a criminal investigation of the prosecutor who led the sexual assault case against her husband, and blamed his conviction on a scandal-obsessed media and "a falsified account" from accuser Andrea Constand.

In a three-page statement, Camille O. Cosby – who has stood by the comedy icon as more than 60 women have accused him of sexual improprieties dating back decades – sought to cast the guilty verdict in her husband's retrial last week as part of a historic series of wrongs against African Americans dating back to slavery.

As his lawyers and entourage had done already, she likened his prosecution to a lynching and cast Cosby as a modern-day Emmett Till, the black teen whose 1955 lynching in Mississippi became a signature moment of the civil rights era.

"This is a homogeneous group of exploitive and corrupt people, whose primary purpose is to advance themselves professionally and economically at the expense of Mr. Cosby's life," Camille Cosby wrote, referring to the largely white group of prosecutors, accusers, reporters, and court staff she blamed for her husband's conviction. "We the majority of the people must make America what it declared itself to be — a democracy — not to be destroyed by vicious, lying, self-absorbed paradigms of evilness."

Her remarks came a week after a jury of seven men and five women convicted her husband on three counts of aggravated indecent assault tied to his 2004 attack on Constand, a former Temple University employee.

And the tone of her statement underscored the fiercely protective role Camille Cosby has played in shaping her husband's career and public image for more than five decades.

She had remained largely absent from and silent during her husband's two trials, although sources have described her as actively involved and monitoring her husband's defense.

When she has chosen to speak publicly, her words have been cutting – to the point of alienating some of her husband's allies with their venom.

After Bill Cosby's first trial ended in a hung jury and mistrial last June, Camille Cosby penned a searing attack on the Montgomery County justice system that was read by spokesman Andrew Wyatt on the Montgomery County courthouse steps.

"How do I describe the district attorney? Heinously and exploitatively ambitious," it read. "How do I describe the judge? Overtly and arrogantly collaborating with the district attorney."

Those attacks on District Attorney Kevin R. Steele and Judge Steven T. O'Neill, who presided over the case, prompted a public argument between Wyatt and Bill Cosby's then-lawyer Brian McMonagle over whether it should be read aloud at all. McMonagle later parted ways with Cosby before his second trial.

Camille Cosby's statement Thursday directed her ire at many of the same targets and, with its allusions to Till's case, appeared designed to provoke a response in the African American community.

Till was lynched after a white woman accused him of touching her and making sexual comments; she admitted decades later that her allegations were fabricated.

"Once again, an innocent person has been found guilty based on an unthinking, unquestioning, unconstitutional frenzy propagated by the media and allowed to play out in a supposed court of law," Camille Cosby wrote of her husband's case. "This is mob justice, not real justice. This tragedy must be undone not just for Bill Cosby, but for the country."

She also lambasted many of the organizations that have rescinded honorary degrees or awards they once granted her husband – a list that grew Thursday to include the Television Academy's Hall of Fame; the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; and the board of the Marian Anderson Award, which gave the honor to Cosby in 2010.

Of the reporters who have been covering the parade of new allegations against her husband since 2014, Camille wrote: "Are the media now the people's judges and juries? Since when are all accusers truthful?"

She described Steele — who declined to respond Thursday — as "unethical."

As for Constand, Camille Cosby wrote: "I firmly believe her recent testimony during trial was perjured. … It was unsupported by any evidence and riddled with innumerable, dishonest contradictions."

Constand lawyer Dolores Troiani said Thursday she did not intend to respond to Camille Cosby's attack. In an email, she wrote: "12 honorable people, a jury of Cosby's peers, have spoken, there's nothing else to say."

In a statement of their own issued Monday, the jurors who delivered the verdict said they firmly believed Constand's account and found Bill Cosby's sworn testimony from a 2005 civil suit to be the most compelling evidence against him.

"Simply put," it read, "we were asked to assess the credibility of Ms. Constand's account of what happened to her, and each one of us found her account credible and compelling."

Bill Cosby remains confined, under orders from O'Neill, to his home in Cheltenham until his sentencing. He could face up to 10 years in prison for each count on which he was convicted April 26.

Keep up with every development in Bill Cosby's case with our day-by-day recapstimeline, and explainer on everything you need to know about the case and its major players.