Cosby jailed and branded ‘sexually violent predator’ over attack
● ‘America’s Dad’ branded a ‘violent predator’ and put on sex register
Bill Cosby is led away after he was sentenced to three to ten years in jail for drugging and sexually assaulting a woman, becoming the first celebrity of the #Metoo era to be sent to prison. The judge declared Cosby a ‘sexually violent predator’, meaning he must undergo counselling for the rest of his life
Cosby has been sentenced to three to ten years in state prison for drugging and molesting a woman at his suburban Philadelphia home.
Judge Steven O’neill sentenced the former American sitcom star yesterday, five months after Cosby’s conviction in the first celebrity trial of the #Metoo era.
The 81-year-old comedian did not make a statement in court.
Cosby sat back in his chair, his head on the headrest, as the sentence was read.
The entertainer, once known as “America’s Dad”, was convicted in April of sexually assaulting Temple University athletics administrator Andrea Constand in 2004.
Constand is one of about 60 women who have accused Cosby of sexual misconduct.
Mr O’neill declared Cosby a “sexually violent predator” ahead of handing out the sentence. The classification means Cosby must undergo monthly counselling for the rest of his life and report quarterly to authorities. His name will appear on a sex-offender registry sent to neighbours, schools and victims.
Montgomery County Judge O’neill made the decision as he weighed the punishment for Cosby for violating Temple University women’s basketball administrator Andrea Constand at his suburban Philadelphia estate in 2004.
Cosby declined the opportunity to address the court before the judge retreated to his chambers around noon to consider the sentence. O’neill said he would announce his decision early in the afternoon.
Cosby’s lawyers asked for house arrest, saying the entertainer, who is legally blind, was too old and helpless to do time in prison. Prosecutors asked for five to ten years behind bars, saying the comic could still be a threat to women.
Montgomery County Disbill
trict Attorney Kevin Steele rejected the notion that “age, infirmity, should somehow equate to mercy”.
“He was good at hiding this for a long time,” Mr Steele said. “[He was] good at suppressing this for a long time, so it’s taken a long time to get there.”
Cosby’s lawyers had fought the “sexually violent predator” designation, arguing Pennsylvania’s sex-offender law was unconstitutional and that he was no threat to the public at his age.
But Mr O’neill said prosecunearly
tors had met their burden of proof by “clear and convincing” evidence.
Ms Constand, 45, said in a victim impact statement submitted to the court she had to cope with years of anxiety and self doubt that had left her “stuck in a holding pattern”.
She said her training as a professional basketball player had led her to think she could handle anything, but “life as I knew it” ended on the night she said Cosby knocked her out with pills and penetrated her with his fingers as she lay paralysed on a couch.
“When the sexual assault happened, I was a young woman brimming with confidence and looking forward to a future bright with possibilities,” she wrote in her five-page statement.
“Now, almost 15 years later, I’m a middle-aged woman who’s been stuck in a holding pattern for most of her adult life, unable to heal fully or to move forward.”
She also wrote: “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.”
In the years since Ms Constand first went to authorities in 2005, more than 60 women have accused Cosby of sexual misconduct, though none of those claims have led to criminal charges.
The judge ruled on Cosby’s sex-offender status after defence psychologist Timothy Foley testified the chances of the comedian committing another sex offence were “extraordinarily low” because he was old, legally blind and needed help getting around.