Pa. jurors in Cosby retrial get case after final arguments
NORRISTOWN, Pa. — The jury in Bill Cosby’s sexual assault retrial will begin deliberating Wednesday after a searing day of closing arguments in which the comedian was variously portrayed as a calculating predator who is finally being brought to justice, or the victim of a multimilliondollar frame- up by a “pathological liar.”
The judge sent the seven men and five women back Jurors will begin deliberating Wednesday in the Bill Cosby sexual assault case. to their hotel Tuesday after the jurors indicated they were exhausted from listening to 51⁄ hours of arguments.
“I want you well rested. I think you have collectively made a wise decision,” Judge Steven O’Neill said.
The first big celebrity trial of the #MeToo era pits Cosby, the 80-year-old former TV star whose career and good-guy reputation were destroyed by a barrage of allegations involving drugs and sex, against Andrea Constand, a former Temple University women’s basketball administrator who testified that he drugged and sexually violated her at his suburban Philadelphia mansion 14 years ago.
Five other women got on the witness stand and testified the same thing had happened to them.
“The time for the defendant to escape justice is over. It’s finally time for the defendant to dine on the banquet of his own consequences,” prosecutor Stewart Ryan told the jury.
Cosby’s lawyers, meanwhile, argued that the charges were based on “flimsy, silly, ridiculous evidence.”
Cosby faces three counts of aggravated indecent assault, each carrying up to 10 years in prison. The jury at his first trial deliberated for over six days last year without reaching a verdict.
Defense attorneys Tom Mesereau and Kathleen Bliss said in their closing argument that Constand consented to sexual activity, then leveled false accusations against the “Cosby Show” star so she could sue him and extract a big settlement.
Constand, 45, received nearly $3.4 million from Cosby over a decade ago in what Mesereau called “one of the biggest highway robberies of all time.”
“You’re dealing with a pathological liar, members of the jury,” Mesereau said. “You are.”
Cosby’s wife, Camille, looked on from the gallery as his lawyers pleaded with the jury to clear him.
After last year’s hung jury, the defense mounted a more aggressive effort to stoke doubts about Constand’s credibility.