Bill Cosby’s lead defense attorney has quit just months before Cosby’s retrial against accuser, Andrea Constandt, is set to begin.

After a jury declared a mistrial twice in a row for the Cosby vs. Constandt sex assault case in June (2017), the same judge who’d ordered them to go back and re-deliberate their verdict, soon granted the prosecuting district attorney to re-try Cosby again for the same case.

The Request For Resignation Reportedly Has Cosby’s Team On Edge

The new trial is scheduled for November 2017, but as preparations are under way, Cosby’s attorney, Brian McMonagle, put in his official letter of resignation on Tuesday (8-2-17). The move has apparently left Cosby and his team scrambling for a replacement:

Via Philly.com: Brian J. McMonagle, a well-known criminal lawyer in the Philadelphia area, asked permission to quit the case in a motion filed Tuesday with Montgomery County Judge Steven T. O’Neill. Cosby hasn’t yet hired a new lawyer and wants until Aug. 21 to do so, McMonagle said in his petition.

In an email Tuesday, Cosby spokesman Andrew Wyatt said the search for a replacement is underway. “I’m vetting lawyers on my short list,” he wrote, but declined to elaborate. O’Neill has set an Aug. 22 court hearing to discuss McMonagle’s withdrawal petition and other “outstanding issues,” including where the jury would be selected for the retrial, scheduled to begin in November.

During Cosby’s June trial, it was McMonagle who passionately gave opening and closing arguments that raised much doubt about Constandt’s (and the prosecution’s other witnesses’) conflicting claims against Cosby.

Why Is Cosby’s Attorney Quitting?

So why is Brain McMonagle quitting so abruptly? Well, word on the Old School curb is that his decision was necessarily as abrupt as it may seem on the outside:

Via Philly.com:…Tension between McMonagle and the rest of Cosby’s team appeared to grow throughout the lengthy jury deliberation. Wyatt, the publicist, talked to reporters on the Norristown courthouse steps almost every day, claiming the judge hadn’t given Cosby a fair trial and declaring victory even as deliberations continued. Minutes after O’Neill declared the mistrial, McMonagle and Wyatt argued heatedly over who would make a public statement and what they would say. McMonagle left the courthouse steps as Ebonee Benson, a colleague of Wyatt’s, read a statement attacking O’Neill and District Attorney Kevin R. Steele.

So if those accounts are accurate, then their was some internal chaos affecting the cohesion among Cosby’s team.