Montco’s preliminary tally for Cosby trials cost tops $400,000

As Bill Cosby awaits his September sentencing date, Montgomery County prosecutors and officials are doing something else: calculating the expense of twice putting the world-famous comedian on trial in a case of sexual assault.

So far, officials said, the cost of prosecuting Cosby twice has approached nearly half a million dollars, according to a breakdown of the expenses.

The cost of paying for sheriff’s deputies and other security alone was nearly $80,000 for Cosby’s April retrial, the figures show. Putting the jurors up in a hotel for the two-week retrial cost $58,000.

All told, expenditures for the retrial and the June 2017 proceedings that ended in a mistrial add up to about $420,000. But prosecutors said they are still calculating other costs associated with investigating and assembling the case against the 80-year-old entertainer, who had been the subject of more than 60 accusations of sexual misconduct. He was finally convicted in April on three counts of aggravated indecent assault for drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand, who considered him a mentor.

After that guilty verdict, Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele brought up a $3.3 million settlement Cosby paid to Constand, which played a key role in the case. During the trial, Cosby’s lawyers said that the sum was not significant to the entertainer, whose net worth is reportedly in the hundreds of millions.

“He was talking about $3.3 million being a paltry sum, or simply a nuisance, so clearly, cost of prosecution in this matter should not be a problem for the defendant,” Steele said.

Whether Cosby will be forced to reimburse the county for the costs of his two trials as part of his sentence – or if taxpayers will pick up some of the tab – will be decided by a judge this fall.

The district attorney office’s has a $134 million budget.