NORRISTOWN, Pa. — The former district attorney who declined a decade ago to bring sex-crime charges against Bill Cosby testified Tuesday that the decision was intended to forever close the door on prosecuting the comedian.

Former Montgomery County district attorney Bruce Castor took the stand at a pretrial hearing in a bid by Cosby’s lawyers to get the case against the TV star thrown out because of what they say is a nonprosecution agreement with Castor.

The current district attorney has said there is no record of any such agreement.

Cosby, 78, was arrested and charged in December with drugging and violating former Temple University athletic department employee Andrea Constand in 2004.

Castor said Tuesday that he believed Constand’s story but that proving it would have been problematic, and so he did not bring charges in 2005.

He said that he made the decision as a representative of the state and that it was intended to last in perpetuity. And he suggested that Cosby and his lawyer at the time had the same understanding, because Cosby later agreed to testify without invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in a lawsuit brought against him by Constand.

Castor said he hoped at the time that the decision not to prosecute would free Cosby to testify in the lawsuit and help Constand win damages.

Associated Press