Bill Cosby convicted on 3 counts of sexual assault
Iconic entertainer Bill Cosby was convicted Thursday on three counts of sexual assault, a decision that punctuates one of the most thundering falls from grace in American cultural history. Cosby faces a maximum of 10 years for each count of assault. No sentencing date has been set. The conviction comes in a retrial of a 2017 case in which a mistrial was declared.
As the foreperson of the jury, a slender woman with long graying hair and glasses, said those three words — guilty, guilty, guilty — the courtroom rocked with emotion. Two women who have accused Cosby of sexual assault but did not
testify at the trial burst out in loud sobs from their seats in one of the back rows of the cramped and tension-filed courtroom.
They were escorted from the courtroom by security officials. But their tears — tears of joy, sadness and exhaustion after a frustrating years-long struggle — still filtered into the courtroom through the heavy closed wooden doors.
Their tears became the soundtrack for the next few moments of courtroom drama, an off-stage symphony of relief, release and pain.
Cosby sat with his chin held in the air, his features betraying only grim resignation and weariness. His eyelids lay heavy on his thick-featured face, a visage so out of step with the comic legend who delighted audiences for more than half a century.
When Cosby received the message about his fate — a conviction that could send him to prison for as many 30 years, essentially a life sentence for a man his age the old comic’s jaw muscles pulsed. He sat rigidly still.
But Cosby’s composure slipped when the jury filed out. The comedian exploded in anger as District Attorney Kevin Steele argued that Cosby has access to a private plane and should have his $1 million bail revoked because he might be a flight risk.
“He doesn’t have a plane!” Cosby shouted in an ear-splitting roar that startled the courtroom and sent necks craning for a glimpse of his moment of distilled rage. “He doesn’t know!”
Steven T. O’Neill, the Montgomery County judge who oversaw the case, declined to revoke Cosby’s bail, but sternly ordered him not to leave his estate in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, a short drive away.
Cosby paused for a moment before leaving the courtroom. He slumped ever so slightly at the defense table. He leaned on a slender cane, his constant companion during the long courtroom battles.
His public relations agents extended a hand. But the TV funnyman, the curmudgeonly father figure, was surrounded only by people on his payroll. Attorneys and publicists encircled him, but his two adult daughters - absent throughout the trial - were nowhere to be seen. His wife, Camille, who’d appeared only for closing arguments, was not there, either.
Moments before the verdict was read, as Cosby awaited the jury decision’s he sat motionless at the defense table in a dark blue suit and red tie, staring into space.
He’d often been chatty and jovial with his defense team before testimony began during the long days of the trial. But on Thursday, the face of the comedian - his head shaved close to his scalp - bore a grim aspect, his eyelids heavy.
Across the room, the main witness against him - Andrea Constand - stood nodding as the district attorney spoke in a hushed whisper to her. She wore the same white blazer she’d worn on the witness stand, the color contrasting with her deeply tanned face. When she took her place on the courtroom bench, she closed her eyes for a long time, sitting up arrow straight as if she were meditating. Four rows behind her, Therese Serignese - a Cosby accuser who was not called to testify - pulled facial tissues from her purse. She dabbed tears from her eyes and slumped forward in her seat, her face a whirl of emotions - relief, release, exhaustion.