Bill Cosby fires seven lawyers, hires one lawyer

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Gilbert Carrasquillo/Getty Images(PHILADELPHIA) — Comedian Bill Cosby has fired all seven attorneys on his legal team just months ahead of his September sentencing, replacing them with a single Pennsylvania criminal-defense lawyer.

The move, confirmed by Cosby spokesman Andrew Wyatt, comes on the heels of the entertainer’s April conviction on three counts of felony sexual assault stemming from his 2004 drugging and sexual molestation of Andrea Constand, a former basketball coach at his alma mater, Temple University.

The disgraced comedian, who remains on house arrest at his suburban Philadelphia home, is facing as much as a decade in prison when he is scheduled to be sentenced in late September.

Wyatt told ABC News that Cosby has hired attorney Joseph P. Green Jr. to represent him going forward.

Pennsylvania law restricts criminal appeals from being filed until after sentencing, so Cosby has yet to challenge his convictions in court.

Green did not immediately respond to multiple requests for comment.

A spokeswoman for Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele said her office is aware of Cosby’s change in counsel, but declined further comment.

Cosby has steadfastly maintained his innocence and continues to assert that none of dozens of women who have come forward in recent years to publicly accuse him of drugging and molesting them are telling the truth.

Cosby, who has been married for decades, has said repeatedly through representatives that any sexual encounters he has engaged in were consensual.

Despite scores of accusations dating back to the 1960s, only Constand’s claims were reported within the statute of limitations on sexual assault prosecutions.

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