January 29, 2019
The Montgomery County prison where inmate Bill Cosby is serving a three-to-10-year sentence was placed on lockdown last week after the comedian was targeted with a drone, according to TMZ.
The SCI Phoenix facility, located in Skippack Township, reportedly went under lockdown for a full day following the incident.
Cosby, 81 and blind, reportedly was being escorted around the prison yard when the drone was spotted in the sky above.
TMZ claims prison officials believe the drone was operated by a media outlet trying to get an image of the disgraced comedian and Philadelphia native. Cosby was denied release from the facility on bail in December while he continues to appeal his case.
Last November, Cosby was found guilty in the 2004 sexual assault case involving former Temple University employee Andrea Constand. The reopened case went to criminal trial as decades of allegations mounted against the comedian, who was deemed a "sexually violent predator" following the verdict.
All Pennsylvania prisons have stepped up their drone detection technology as part of a broad set of policy changes that followed an illness among corrections officers at several facilities last year.
"The DOC does not discuss security matters," a spokesperson said in a statement Tuesday. "That said, the agency has installed drone detection systems as part of enhanced security measures at its prisons. Flying drones over prisons is against the law and DOC will work with law enforcement to prosecute perpetrators to the fullest extent of the law."
