The first day of the retrial against Bill Cosby started off with several protests, including one leading to the arrest of a topless woman.
The woman ran into a crowd of onlookers outside the Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown, Pennsylvania, Monday morning. According to several witnesses, she leaped over a barricade and removed her shirt before the police could take her into custody just ahead of Cosby’s arrival to the courthouse.
The woman arrested outside the Montgomery County Courthouse during the first day of the retrial has been identified as Nicole Rochelle, 39, of Little Falls, New Jersey. Rochelle, who also goes by the stage name Nicole Leach, was charged with disorderly conduct after entering a restricted area outside the courthouse and charging topless at Cosby as the 80-year-old comedian entered the building with his legal team.
Rochelle, an actress who has appeared in several television shows, was featured on at least one episode of The Cosby Show. She played “Davina” in the season-eight episode of “The Infantry Has Landed (and They’ve Fallen Off the Roof).”
Given the nature of the case, the 80-year-old comedian is charged with three felony counts of sexual assault for allegedly drugging and assaulting Andrea Constand, a former Temple University employee, in his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004. It’s expected that the climate outside the courthouse during this era of #MeToo and #TimesUp will continue to get heated as the case proceeds this week.
