JAIL-O
Cosby gets 3 to 10 years for sex attack Accusers rejoice, ‘I just hope he suffers’
Former Jell-O pitchman Bill Cosby walks out of suburban Philadelphia court in cuffs after being sentenced Tuesday.
Disgraced pudding pop pitchman Bill Cosby finally got his just desserts.
Judge Steven O’Neill on Tuesday sentenced the fallen funnyman to three to 10 years in state prison for drugging and sexually assaulting former Temple University staffer Andrea Constand nearly 15 years ago.
Cosby, 81, removed his tie and cufflinks and was escorted from the Montgomery County District Courthouse in handcuffs after the judge denied him bail.
“It’s time for justice,” O’Neill said. “Mr. Cosby, this has all circled back to you. The time has come.”
Prosecutors had asked for a term of five to 10 years, arguing the man once revered as “America’s Dad” showed no remorse for his actions. Cosby’s legal team requested house arrest, arguing Cosby is now legally blind and poses no risk to the community.
P.J. Masten — who came forward in 2014 to accuse Cosby of drugging and raping her in 1979, when she worked as a Bunny manager at the Playboy Club in Chicago — said she was overcome with emotion when she heard the sentence.
“First I screamed, and then I just started to cry,” Masten told the Daily News in a phone interview.
“He’s done. He can’t hurt anybody else ever again. I’m just so relieved it’s finally over,” she said. “I just hope he suffers in prison. His survivors have suffered for more than 40 years. It’s now his turn to suffer and see what it feels like. We’ve had attempted suicides, hospital stays, ongoing therapy. We’ve been attacked and spit on. It’s been horrific.”
Fellow accuser Jennifer Kaya Thompson, 47, expressed shock Cosby got close to what prosecutors wanted and could spend a decade behind bars.
“I was just so surprised. It’s been so many years, I didn’t think it would actually happen. I expected him to get away with it,” Thompson told The News.
“I didn’t think people would be able to wake up, collectively. So it’s really rewarding on many levels. It’s a sign our society is healing. It really affirms we do care, and just because a person has money, status, fame and knows how to bully people, that doesn’t mean they will come out ahead,” she said.
Thompson was a 17-yearold model when she met Cosby in 1988 with the hope of landing a role on “The Cosby Show.”
She stepped forward as a Jane Doe witness for Constad during her 2005 civil lawsuit and later went public with claims the powerful comedian made unwanted sexual advances and manipulated her into performing a sex act at his New York residence that caused her lasting trauma.
“The damage he caused was to his victims as well as their families and loved ones. It robbed us of many of our hopes and dreams. It’s a complex sort of victimhood,” Thompson said.
O’Neill on Tuesday also declared Cosby to be a “sexually violent predator,” a designation that requires the for-
mer comedian to submit to counseling for the remainder of his life. The label had no impact on the length of Cosby's sentence.
Cosby's publicist, Andrew Wyatt, gave a withering statement after the sentencing, calling Cosby's legal proceedings “the most racist and sexist trial in the history of the United States.”
He said Cosby was the victim of a “sex war,” and compared him to U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, who's now battling separate accusations of decades-old sexual misconduct.
Constand, 45, offered a much different account during emotional and often excruciating testimony at Cosby's first trial in June 2017, which ended with a deadlocked jury, and again at his retrial five months ago.
The former head of women's basketball operations at Cosby's alma mater, Constand said she considered the actor a mentor and father figure the night he offered her three unidentified blue pills he referred to as “your friends” during a meeting to discuss her career.
She thought the pills were herbal remedies for stress, she testified, and was stunned and confused when they caused her words to slur, her vision to blur and her legs to turn rubbery.
Constand told the jurors she felt powerless as Cosby groped her breasts, penetrated her with his fingers and masturbated himself with her hand.
“I wanted it to stop,” she said on the witness stand in April. “I was weak. I was limp, and I could not fight him off.”
While Cosby's first jury failed to reach a verdict after marathon deliberations, his second jury of five women and seven men returned a unanimous verdict after a 12day trial that included new testimony from five additional accusers, including former supermodel Janice Dickinson.
“The harrowing memory of the rape continues to this day. I have reoccurring nightmares, I wake up in fear, I fear the dark. I struggle to discuss this even with my beloved husband of six years,” Dickinson said in a statement Tuesday, adding that she “will never be the same.”
During a press conference after the sentencing, Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele said Cosby not only used his onscreen personality to manipulate women, but that he also used it as a shield to hide behind.
“It was a seminal character on TV, and so was the family, but it was fiction,” he said.