Bill Cosby a ‘serial rapist’

– Evidence of being a serial rapist finally caught up with Bill Cosby after decades of assaulting women and hiding behind his kindly television persona, prosecutors told a Pennsylvania jury in closing arguments of his sexual assault trial.

“The defendant spent years and years building up a bank of trust. He used it every time he sexually assaulted one of his victims,” Montgomery County Assistant District Attorney Stewart Ryan told the jury. “The time for the defendant to escape justice is over.”

With evidence and closing arguments concluded, the jury of seven men and five women was due to begin deliberations yesterday to decide whether to convict Cosby, 80, on trial on three counts of aggravated indecent assault of Andrea Constand, 45, at his home outside Philadelphia in January 2004.

In his first trial last year, 12 different jurors deliberated fiveand-a-half days before declaring themselves deadlocked.

About 50 women have accused Cosby, the once-beloved comedian and TV dad, of sexual assault going back decades, but only Constand’s case was recent enough to be prosecuted.

Cosby has denied wrongdoing, saying any sexual contact was consensual.

Last time only Constand and one other accuser were allowed to testify. In this trial, five other women took the stand, each saying they, like Constand, had been drugged and violated by the man who played the genial Dr Heathcliff Huxtable on The Cosby Show in the ’80s.

In their closing arguments, defense lawyers attacked the credibility of women who testified against him, drawing a stern rebuke from prosecutors who said such shaming of victims was the reason women do not report sex crimes.

Defence lawyer Thomas Mesereau labelled Constand “a pathological liar” and reminded the jury she continued to call Cosby after the alleged assault. He declared Cosby “must be acquitted on all counts”.

Co-counsel Kathleen Bliss then assailed the five other accusers who testified, saying they fabricated stories in search of money.

His wife of more than 50 years, Camille Cosby, attended court for the first time. – Reuters

Norristown