Cosby guilty of sexually assaulting Toronto woman
NORRISTOWN, PA.— It was a defining moment for the #MeToo movement and a shattering fall for a once-beloved entertainment icon in his twilight years.
A Pennsylvania jury’s guilty verdict against comedian Bill Cosby on sexual assault charges marked the first highprofile criminal conviction since the start of a movement demanding sexual predators, even those with power and fame, be held to account.
Cosby was found guilty Thursday on charges he drugged and molested Andrea Constand of Toronto, a former basketball official at Temple University who said she had once considered Cosby a mentor and friend.
Drawing a loud gasp from spectators, the verdict followed a day and a half of deliberations, and came less than a year after a previous jury reached a deadlock.
Cosby maintained his innocence, but a series of accusers painted him as a sexual predator whose attacks spanned de- cades. After the verdict, some of the witnesses and their supporters wept.
“Bill Cosby, we have three words for you,” said Gloria Allred, a lawyer who has represented dozens of Cosby’s accusers in civil actions. “Guilty. Guilty. Guilty.”
Underscoring the polarizing nature of the case, the comic was cheered and jeered as he left court. Some onlookers yelled, “Burn in hell!” while others shouted out, “We love you, brother!”
At one point, he raised his hand and stopped to face the cameras and onlookers before entering his SUV.
The three counts of aggravated indecent assault lodged against Cosby each carry a penalty of up to 10 years in prison, a sentence that would likely put the 80-year-old behind bars for the rest of his life.
Cosby, who walks with a cane and recently said he is blind, listened to the verdict stoically, but lashed out loudly at District Attorney Kevin Steele, calling him an “a-----e,” after the prosecutor asked that Cosby be immediately jailed because he was a flight risk.
Later, Steele said the outburst was telling. “I think everybody got to see who he really is.”
The judge decided Cosby can remain free on $1-million (U.S.) bail while he awaits sentencing, but ordered him to remain at home except for future court appearances. He will also undergo a sexual-predator assessment. Steele said sentencing would likely happen within 60 to 90 days.
The accusations against Cosby posed a deeply troubling juxtaposition for a public that grew up with his wholesome image cultivated over decades of putting out landmark family-friendly comedy albums and peddling pudding on TV. His image as America’s favourite father was cemented in his TV role as obstetrician Cliff Huxtable, the kindly and wise patriarch in The Cosby Show, that ran in the 1980s and early ’90s.
In the months after the jury in Cosby’s 2017 criminal trial deadlocked, the #MeToo movement erupted, with scores of powerful men brought to account over charges of sexually harassing or assaulting women, often in the context of an implied threat to block victims’ professional advancement unless they submitted. The trial unfolded against that back- drop, with jurors pledging to be impartial despite this being the first high-profile test of the movement in criminal court.
In the 2017 trial, just one woman was allowed to testify to an episode similar to the 2004 assault that Constand described.
Prosecutors were more optimistic with this case as lawyers for Constand, now 45, were allowed to bring in five other women who told similar stories of being manipulated by Cosby into taking pills and then finding themselves immobilized and helpless to fight him off as he molested or raped them.
Cosby’s legal team offered up a blistering portrayal of the accusers as opportunistic liars, and sought to undermine Constand’s credibility by producing a witness, a onetime roommate, who described hearing her musing about falsely accusing a famous man in order to win a big payoff. Early in the trial, the defence disclosed that Cosby had earlier paid Constand nearly $3.4 million (U.S.) to settle a previously confidential civil claim.
Constand, who stood with Steele and the prosecution team after the verdict, was emotional — as was Steele — when talking about the journey from civil trial to the first criminal trial to Thursday afternoon.
Constand didn’t speak, but her attorney, Delores Dolores Troiani, said she was happy to be able to say that “though justice was delayed, it was not denied.”