Cosby verdict is racist, sexist, say defenders
norristown (Pennsylvania) — A publicist for the once-beloved Bill Cosby complained that his conviction and three- to 10-year prison term for sexual assault stem from a racist and sexist justice system, as the defence vowed to appeal the first celebrity trial of the #MeToo era.
Cosby, 81, spent his first night alone in a Pennsylvania prison after being accustomed to a life filled with handlers and household help. He could eventually be sent to a state prison that has separate units for geriatric prisoners and programmes for sex offenders.
Cosby spokesman Andrew Wyatt said Tuesday after the comedian’s sentencing that Cosby was “one of the greatest civil rights leaders in the United States for over the past 50 years,” while decrying the trial as the “most sexist and racist” in the country’s history.
The judge, prosecutor and jury saw it differently.
“No one is above the law. And no one should be treated disproportionately because of who they are, where they live, or even their wealth, celebrity or philanthropy,” Montgomery County Judge Steven O’Neill said in sentencing Cosby to an above-average sentence for a 2004 sex assault.
Cosby’s defence team has raised the racial issue before, in 2016, before quickly scrapping it.
“We prosecute where the evidence takes us and that was done in this (Cosby) case. When (US) Judge (Eduardo) Robreno released the deposition and said that this is perhaps criminal, we’re obligated to look at that and we did and we worked through the case and we got to where we are today.” Cosby was found guilty in April of drugging and sexually assaulting a woman at his gated estate in 2004 after being barraged with similar accusations from more than 60 women over the past five decades.
“It is time for justice. Mr. Cosby, this has all circled back to you. The time has come,” O’Neill said. He quoted from victim Andrea Constand’s statement submitted to the court, in which she said Cosby took her “beautiful, young spirit and crushed it.”
In her statement, Constand, 45, wrote of Cosby: “We may never know the full extent of his double life as a sexual predator, but his decades-long reign of terror as a serial rapist is over.”
On NBC’s ‘Today’ on Wednesday morning, prosecutor Kristen Feden reflected on the difficulty of the case, which included a first trial in 2017 that ended in a hung jury, and said Constand told her she was happy with the sentence.
“I always look for my strength in the victims, and Andrea Constand was amazing,” Feden said. “Her courage and her strength was enough for me to say, ‘Let’s keep going.’”
Cosby declined the opportunity to speak before the sentence came down, and afterward sat laughing and chatting with his defense team. His wife of 54 years, Camille, was not in court. Constand smiled broadly on hearing the punishment and was hugged by others in the courtroom.
In a blistering statement, spokesman Wyatt said the comedian was subjected to the “most racist and sexist trial in the history of the United States.” —