Cosby’s drug talk sealed fate: juror

PHILADELPHIA •Speaking out for the first time, the jury that convicted Bill Cosby at his sexual assault retrial said Monday its decision was influenced only by what happened in court. The youngest member of the panel said the comedian’s own words sealed his fate.

Harrison Snyder, 22, said in an interview on ABC’s Good Morning America that Cosby’s deposition — in which he admitted giving women drugs to have sex with them — was the evidence that made him believe he was guilty.

“I think it was his deposition, really. Mr. Cosby admitted to giving these quaaludes to women, young women, in order to have sex with them,” Snyder said.

Snyder said it “wasn’t an open and shut case,” but added he had no doubt the jury made the right decision Thursday in convicting Cosby on three counts of aggravated indecent assault.

The investigation into Cosby was reopened in July 2015 after a federal judge, acting on a request from The Associated Press, unsealed portions of Cosby’s deposition testimony from a civil lawsuit he settled with his accuser, Andrea Constand, in 2006 for nearly $3.4 million.

In the testimony, which was read to jurors at both trials, he described giving quaaludes to women before sex in the 1970s. Cosby also described his sexual encounters with Constand, a Temple University women’s basketball administrator from Toronto.

Five other women testified at the retrial that Cosby had drugged and molested them as well, but Snyder said they weren’t a factor in his decision. “I don’t think it really necessarily mattered that these other five women were here because he said it himself that he used drugs for other women,” he said.

The Cosby jury issued a statement saying its decision was not influenced in any way by factors other than what was seen and heard in the courtroom. Race and the #MeToo movement against sexual misconduct were never discussed, according to the statement, obtained by NBC’s Today show.

“After thoughtful and meticulous consideration of the information and evidence provided to us, we came to our unanimous verdict,” the jury said. “Not once were race or the #metoo movement ever discussed, nor did either factor into our decision, as implied in various media outlets.”

Cosby, 80, is now a prisoner in his own suburban Philadelphia home and faces the prospect of spending the rest of his life behind bars as he awaits sentencing, likely within the next three months. His publicist has declared his conviction a “public lynching,” and his lawyers have vowed to appeal.

“This is what they wanted,” Cosby told the New York Post’s Page Six after his conviction. He referred to prison as “that place.”