detectors. for the first year this year, police officers will be armed with long guns. you will see a very heavily armed security presence out here as more than a million people come in to ring in the new year and celebrate, they want to make sure it is not only safe but also a fun start to the new year. absolutely. as we see many of those precautions and law enforcement already as we have the past couple of days. thank you so much for the update. i want to bring in malcolm nance, an msnbc contributor and counterterrorism intelligence consultant. i appreciate your being with us as we are now hearing of this arrest of this 25-year-old emanuel lechman planning allegedly to attack new year s eve in a restaurant or bar in rochester. you have so many people who are already on edge as far as the public, and different celebrations overnight, but you have this one considered a soft target, not times square but a bar in rochester. tell us a little about what that says about the in
this is the courthouse and you walk in the door. we asked when first got here is bill cosby actually going to be here and they said, yes, we expect him to be here. so the courtroom was packed. very small courtroom was packed. and suddenly one of the law enforcement local police put his head in and said to the montgomery county investigators, get ready. and right after that that black suv pulled up. and we could see it right out the window. he got out. he walked into the courtroom with monique presley who has been a spokeswoman for the defense, by his side. she seemingly led him to his seat. it seemed like he couldn t see. and she was directing him where to turn and how to sit down. he sat down, a male attorney sat to his left. and just before you knew it the judge, the magistrate judge, sat in her seat, came in. everyone rose. and she said good afternoon, mr. cosby. and she immediately, which is the purpose of this arraignment,
profession professional, down to earth but yet, sort of like it happened every day. and then at the end she said mr. cosby, good luck and he said thank you. no smile on the face but just sort of down to earth, thank you. stood up and he was let out of the courtroom and it really appeared as though he couldn t see well because monique presley, his counsel was just guiding him every step of the way. all right. now jean casarez at the courthouse, thank you. it appeared to be that way. i want to bring in don lemon, joey jackson and cnn law enforcement analyst tom fuentes, a former fbi assistant director. joey, cosby admits giving constant the pills in this deposition. he actually calls them three little friends to help her relax or three friends to help her relax. how strong is the prosecutor s case? you know, brianna, good
right now, he s out on bail of $1 million. here s the statement we have from bill cosby s attorney. i m going to read it in its entirety. monique presley, one of the attorneys representing bill cosby right now. the charge by the montgomery county district attorney s office came as no surprise. filed 12 years after the alleged incident and coming on the heels of a hotly contested election for this county s da, during which this case was made the focal point. make no mistake, we intend to mount a vigorous defense against this unjustified charge and we expect that mr. cosby will be exonerated by a court of law. because you re both sitting here with me, i ll ask you to weigh in on that statement. it appears that cosby s attorney is saying that the charge today was political. yeah, i m not surprised by
that response at all. i do wonder, if i m not mistaken, presley s services were retained by mr. cosby after this case completely blew up. did he have a pretty young black female lawyer prior to this, because the lawyers that i knew associated with him throughout these allegations were not black and female. so that a black woman is now the face of the cosby defense, it really just feels like it s part of the strategy of the cosby team, to play on this image that he has in the hearts and minds of a lot of people, particularly african americans, and speaking to that narrative of a good black man being taken down by an unseen plot. i appreciate your time, thanks so much. up next, we ll pick up and talk about the politics of this, how politics perhaps played a role in the case against bill cosby. stay with us. this is msnbc.