The highest court in Pennsylvania has overturned Bill Cosby's sexual assault conviction, and ordered that the disgraced former actor and comedian be released from prison.

Cosby has been accused of sexual assault by over 60 women, and was jailed in 2018 after being found guilty of drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand at his home in 2004. The conviction was seen as a landmark victory for the #MeToo movement, one that prompted a slew of allegations against powerful men in Hollywood and across the music industry.

The recent decision comes after Cosby served more than two years of a three-to-ten-year prison sentence, following the 2018 conviction. Cosby allegedly vowed he would serve the full ten years of his sentence, rather than admit remorse for his actions toward Andrea Constand, Sky News reports.

Cosby's original trial in 2017 resulted in a mistrial after the jury failed to come to a unanimous decision. When the trial returned the following year, Cosby was convicted on three counts of aggravated indecent assault, including: penetration without consent, penetration while unconscious, and penetration after administering an intoxicant.

The court in Pennsylvania has now found that an agreement with a previous prosecutor prevented Cosby from being charged in the case. In addition, judges have said that testimony from accusers who were not related to the case tainted the trial, despite the fact that a lower appeals court found it was appropriate at the time to establish a pattern of drugging and molesting women.

Justice David Wecht said that overturning the conviction as well as barring further prosecution “is the only remedy that comports with society’s reasonable expectations of its elected prosecutors and our criminal justice system”.

Cosby was denied parole recently for refusing to participate in sex offenders programs during his prison sentence.