Bruce Lee Castor Jr. (born October 24, 1961) is an American lawyer and retired Republican politician from Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. He was appointed as the first Solicitor General of Pennsylvania in March 2016, and also first deputy attorney general the following July.
The move was necessitated because the Attorney General had her license to practice law suspended by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
In November 2017, Castor sued Constand and her lawyers for defamation, charging that the lawsuit and its timing were retaliatory and ruined his political career.
Castor was supposedly subordinate to Kane in all matters except for making legal decisions on behalf of Pennsylvania, though most observers considered him the de facto attorney general, a fact later confirmed upon Kane's resignation.
O'Neill's ruling was reversed by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court on June 30, 2021, which held that Castor's non-prosecution pledge was in fact binding on Cosby's prosecutor; this ruling resulted in the overturning of Cosby's conviction and his release from prison.
On March 21, 2016, Castor took the oath of office as the first Solicitor General of Pennsylvania. Being summoned to her Scranton office by Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen G. Kane on March 4, 2016, without explanation, Castor met General Kane expecting her to request him to represent her in a private capacity.
Castor ran for the GOP nomination for Pennsylvania Attorney General in 2004 against Republican Tom Corbett. Furious that he had lost endorsements of the southeastern GOP chairmen, Castor attacked Corbett and the county chairmen with allegations of backroom deals with Bob Asher, the state's national GOP committeeman. Castor and Asher had feuded for several years due to Asher's prior felony convictions for perjury, bribery, racketeering, and conspiracy in 1986 in the context of a political corruption scandal which also involved the State Treasurer, R. Budd Dwyer, leading to Dwyer's committing suicide at a press conference before his sentencing. Asher had been state GOP Chair during the scandal and was convicted for participating in the bribery of Dwyer. Asher's criminal past, connected to a political bribery scheme while he was the Republican state chair, became a subject of the campaign for the state's top law enforcement post.
Bruce L. Castor Jr., a former Pennsylvania district attorney and commissioner, was named to Donald Trump’s impeachment defense team on Sunday evening. Castor is known in part for a deal he reached with actor Bill Cosby in 2005, where Castor declined to charge Cosby on sexual assault charges in return for Cosby’s testimony in a civil suit.
Castor, who later served as acting state attorney general after Kathleen Kane resigned, was one of two lawyers named to represent Trump at his upcoming impeachment trial, slated to begin next week. The other member of the team is David Schoen, an Alabama attorney.
Castor later settled a defamation lawsuit file d by Constand outside of court in early 2019 over comments Castor made about why he didn’t press charges. Castor also served as the state’s solicitor general, a $150,000-a-year executive position, in 2016 under then-Attorney General Kane.
Bruce Castor, a member of former President Donald Trump's legal team, is seen on Capitol Hill as preparations for the former President's trial are made Feb. 8, 2021, in Washington.
Cosby was later tried and convicted in 2018 for drugging and sexually assaulting Constand at his home in 2004, despite the fact that Castor argued during a pre-trial hearing that he'd already committed the state to not prosecuting the actor.