The Latest: Cosby seeks competency test on 13 other accusers

PHILADELPHIA – The Latest on Bill Cosby (all times local):

1:50 p.m.

Lawyers for Bill Cosby in his Pennsylvania sexual assault case are seeking competency hearings on 13 other accusers and say the women’s memories have been tainted by time and media coverage.

Defence lawyers have hired a psychologist to review their statements. They say prosecutors are trying to use “tainted, unreliable memories of women, now in their senior years,” to unfairly convict their client.

Cosby’s lawyers blast prosecutors for using a single 2005 complaint to air what they call dubious accounts about the night the other women crossed paths with a celebrity.

The two sides will face off in court Tuesday to determine what evidence can be used at the June trial.

Cosby is charged with drugging and molesting a former Temple University employee in 2004. He has pleaded not guilty.

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1 a.m.

Prosecutors preparing for Bill Cosby’s sexual-assault trial hope to call 13 other accusers to try to show he drugged and molested women as part of a “signature” crime spree over five decades.

The defence will attack their credibility and try again to have the case thrown out at a pretrial hearing starting Tuesday in suburban Philadelphia.

The 79-year-old entertainer is charged over a single 2004 encounter with a former Temple University employee.

Pennsylvania law also allows testimony about “prior bad acts” if they fit a nearly identical crime pattern.

Prosecutors say Cosby routinely used his fame and power to befriend impressionable young women, then drugged and sexually assaulted them.

Cosby has pleaded not guilty and remains free on $1 million bail.