Cosby jury set to decide who is the ‘con’
UNITED STATES: The jury in Bill Cosby’s sexual assault retrial has begun deliberating after a day of blistering closing arguments in which the comedian was variously portrayed as a calculating predator who is finally being brought to justice, or the victim of a multimillion-dollar frame-up.
The judge sent the seven men and five women back to their hotel yesterday after they indicated they were exhausted after listening to about 51⁄2 hours of arguments.
‘‘I want you well rested. I think you have collectively made a wise decision,’’ Judge Steven O’Neill said.
The first big celebrity trial of the #MeToo era pits Cosby, the 80-year-old former TV star whose career and good-guy reputation were destroyed by a barrage of allegations involving drugs and sex, against a former Temple University women’s basketball administrator who testified that he drugged and sexually violated her at his suburban Philadelphia mansion 14 years ago.
Five other women got on the witness stand and testified that the same thing had happened to them.
‘‘The time for the defendant to escape justice is over. It’s finally time for the defendant to dine on the banquet of his own consequences,’’ prosecutor Stewart Ryan told jurors.
The defence urged jurors to acquit Cosby on charges he assaulted Andrea Constand, his chief accuser, saying they were based on ‘‘flimsy, silly, ridiculous evidence’’.
Cosby faces three counts of aggravated indecent assault, each carrying up to 10 years in prison. The jury at his first trial deliberated for more than 52 hours over six days last year without reaching a verdict.
Defence attorneys Tom Mesereau and Kathleen Bliss said in their closing argument that Constand consented to sexual activity, then levelled false accusations so she could sue Cosby and extract a big settlement. Constand received nearly US$3.4 million from Cosby over a decade ago – a settlement that Mesereau argued was ‘‘one of the biggest highway robberies of all time’’.
‘‘You’re dealing with a pathological liar, members of the jury,’’ he said.
Camille Cosby, 74, looked on from the public gallery as her husband’s lawyers pleaded with the jury to clear him, the first time she had attended the trial.
When it was the prosecution’s turn to argue, Camille Cosby left the courtroom, and Constand entered.
Constand, 45, alleges that Cosby knocked her out with three pills he called ‘‘your friends’’ and molested her in January 2004. Her account was bolstered by the testimony of five other women who took the stand and said Cosby had drugged and assaulted them.
The defence ripped into the other accusers, saying they were motivated by the prospect of money and fame to fabricate their accounts.
After last year’s hung jury, the defence team also mounted a far more aggressive effort to stoke doubts about Constand’s credibility and raise questions about whether Cosby’s arrest was legal.
Their star witness was Marguerite Jackson, a former Temple University colleague of Constand’s who testified that Constand spoke of framing a high-profile person for the purpose of filing a lawsuit.
Kristen Feden, another prosecutor, bristled at what she called the defence’s ‘‘horrible character assassination’’ of Constand and the other women.
She called Cosby the true con artist – wresting that label from Cosby’s lawyers, who had applied it to Constand. ‘‘Yes, you did hear about a con,’’ Feden said, her voice rising as she moved towards Cosby and pointed at him. ‘‘The perpetrator of that con is this man, sitting right here.’’
The defence highlighted more than a dozen inconsistencies in what Constand has said over the years. Cosby’s lawyers also painstakingly reviewed phone and travel records for Cosby and Constand, as well as a schedule for the Temple women’s basketball team, saying they are proof the alleged assault couldn’t have happened when Constand says it did. Prosecutors have noted that Cosby’s travel records have large gaps in time.
In arguing over when Cosby’s encounter with Constand took place, Cosby’s lawyers sought to suggest the comedian was charged after the 12-year statute of limitations for prosecuting him had run out.