Bill Cosby attorney recruited by Tucker Arensberg for white collar criminal defense practice

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Attorney Brian W. Perry, who is representing convicted actor and comedian Bill Cosby in post-trial proceedings, joined Tucker Arensberg’s Harrisburg office as a shareholder in the firm’s growing white collar criminal defense practice.

Perry said in an interview Tuesday morning he’s in the process of dissolving the Harrisburg law firm where he has served as managing partner, Perry, Shore, Weisenberger & Zemlock, to transition into his new role.

Tucker Arensberg, a Pittsburgh-based law firm with offices in Harrisburg and New York, announced Perry’s recruitment along with that of attorney Casey G. Shore as senior counsel. With the recruitment of Perry and Shore, Tucker Arensberg is able to mobilize a “preeminent white-collar criminal defense group” that covers the entire commonwealth, officials with the firm said in Monday’s announcement.

“Brian and Casey have outstanding reputations representing clients statewide,” said Jerry J. Russo, shareholder-in-charge of the Harrisburg office and chair of the firm’s white-collar criminal defense practice, in a statement Monday. Russo said he’s known Perry and Shore for more than two decades and said they practice law as “zealot advocates with professionalism and class.”

“They will expand our current white-collar practice, as well as our ability to assist clients with internal corporate investigations, corporate compliance and pre-indictment representation,” Russo said.

As Dauphin County deputy district attorney from 1994 to 1997, Perry prosecuted cases involving sexual abuse and criminal homicide. At the conclusion of his tenure, Perry joined Nealon & Grover, which later evolved into Grover, Perry and Shore in 2008, and Perry, Shore, Weisenberger & Zemlock in 2012.

Shore began his career as a judicial law clerk for Judge Lawrence F. Clark Jr. of the Dauphin County Court of Common Pleas from 2000 to 2002. From 2002 to 2005, he worked as deputy district attorney for Dauphin County, where his primary focus was drug-related prosecutions. In 2005, he joined the firm that would evolve into Perry, Shore, Weisenberger & Zemlock.

Perry and other attorneys with Perry, Shore, Weisenberger & Zemlock joined Cosby’s defense team after he was convicted on three felony sexual assault counts in April of 2018. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court agreed in June to hear Cosby’s argument for retrial after his defense team filed an appeal of a court decision in December that upheld his conviction.

The case remains ongoing, and Perry said the high court is expected to hear oral arguments in early winter.