Prosecutors to judge: send Cosby to prison for 10 years

NORRISTOWN, Pa. — Prosecutors asked a Montgomery County judge Monday to send Bill Cosby to prison for 10 years, arguing that he has shown no remorse for using his celebrity status to befriend and then sexually assault Andrea Constand.

Cosby’s lawyers, however, asked the judge to show mercy on the 81-year-old entertainer, arguing that he is no danger to the public and should be sentenced only to house arrest.

Judge Steven T. O’Neill is expected to make his decision today, determining if Cosby will spend perhaps the rest of his life behind bars or return to the Cheltenham home where he has remained under house arrest since a jury convicted him in April of drugging and assaulting Constand one night in 2004.

Although he was found guilty of three counts of aggravated indecent assault in connection with the incident, the lawyers agreed to merge them into one, making District Attorney Kevin R. Steele’s sentencing request the maximum penalty.

“This is about a person who put himself in a situation of being a mentor, but we know that he had other intentions right from the beginning,” Steele said of Cosby, who offered to help Constand when she was a Temple University employee.

The arguments capped off the first day of what is expected to be a two-day proceeding in Norristown. O’Neill also heard from Constand and her family, and earlier heard a psychologist assert that Cosby should be designated a “sexually violent predator” in part because he has a personality disorder that makes him inclined to engage in sex with nonconsenting women.

Pennsylvania law gives great latitude to judges in determining a sentence, but state guidelines suggest a term of 22 months to three years in prison for Cosby.

Steele told the judge that the defense request to spare Cosby from prison is essentially a “get-out-of -jail-free card,” and asserted that Cosby even hired a band to play for him while on house arrest. He also asked that Cosby pay a $25,000 fine as well as reimburse the court and prosecution for the cost of both trials.

“We ask this because of who he is behind the mask, behind the act that he perpetuated for all the years that he did, behind he used to victimize,” Steele said.

About a half-dozen of Cosby’s accusers showed up for the hearing, greeting each other with hugs. Constand sat in the courtroom with her sister and parents. Behind her sat three women who testified at Cosby’s trial this year — Chelan Lasha, Lise-Lotte Lublin, and Janice Dickinson.

Cosby, wearing a dark suit, sat quietly between his lawyers and leaned forward in his seat, appearing to pay close attention to the proceedings. His wife, Camille, did not attend, and his lawyers chose to call no character witnesses.

Joseph Green, one of Cosby’s lawyers, urged O’Neill to avoid influence from the court of public opinion. He spoke of Cosby’s childhood in North Philadelphia and a legendary career in which he sought to unite people of different races. Now, he said, Cosby is simply a frail old man.

“Mr. Cosby is not dangerous,” Green said. “Eighty-one-year-old blind men who are not self-sufficient are not dangerous.”