Cosby sentencing hearing opens with debate on whether he is ‘a sexually violent predator’
BILL COSBY’S sentencing hearing has opened with a debate over whether the 81-year-old comedian should be branded a “sexually violent predator”.
Such a designation would make him subject to mandatory lifetime counselling and community notification of his whereabouts.
Cosby, who faces up to 30 years in prison for drugging and molesting a Temple University women’s basketball administrator in 2004, fought the prosecution’s effort to classify him as a predator under state law.
Kristen Dudley, a Pennsylvania state board psychologist, said that Cosby has an uncontrollable urge to violate young women and would probably commit another offence if given the chance.
Ms Dudley added that Cosby’s assault of Andrea Constand fits a long pattern of predatory behaviour by the former Cosby Show star.
Cosby often befriended women, then betrayed their trust by sedating them with drugs or alcohol and violating them for the “sole purpose of his sexual gratification”, Ms Dudley said.
Trying to avoid the predator designation for their client, Cosby’s lawyers argued that the state law itself is unconstitutional.
Politicians in Pennsylvania and elsewhere have repeatedly rewritten their sex offender reporting laws after courts found them vague and unfairly punitive.
Prosecutors told Judge Steven O’Neill the law is necessary for public safety, and the judge allowed the hearing on Cosby’s status to proceed.
At the end of a hearing that could last two days, the judge could sentence Cosby to as much as 30 years in prison or send him home on probation.
The state guidelines for someone like Cosby, with no prior convictions, call for about one to four years behind bars.