Jury in Cosby trial to resume deliberations this morning
Actor, comedian charged with sexual assault
NORRISTOWN, Pa. — Jurors began weighing Bill Cosby’s fate Monday, after his lawyer implored them to see Andrea Constand as a lying, money-seeking former paramour while the chief prosecutor in the case portrayed her as a brave victim seeking justice.
Their closing arguments, delivered over more than four hours, capped a weeklong trial against the entertainer, and started a countdown clock for a verdict likely to draw a worldwide spotlight to the Norristown courthouse.
The panel of seven men and five women began deliberating Monday evening, with Judge Steven T. O’Neill prepared to keep them working into the night. They emerged once during their early talks, asking to see a section to Mr. Cosby’s deposition in which he described giving pills to Ms. Constand on the night in 2004 she says he drugged and sexually assaulted her, and later for more evidence.
After four hours, the judge excused them for the night, with orders to resume deliberations at 9 a.m. Tuesday. “This is a very conscientious jury,” Judge O’Neill said. “This is a hard-working jury that’s abiding by its oath in this case.”
In his final statement, Mr. Cosby’s lawyer Brian J. McMonagle had painted Ms. Constand as a liar who badly damaged her credibility with conflicting statements to police — both about her past contact with Mr. Cosby and the alleged
attack — when she first came forward in 2005.
“Why aren’t we just owning it?” Mr. McMonagle told the jury. “It’s a relationship. They’re intimate and they stay intimate and they are intimate. That’s what it is. Why are we trying to make it something it’s not?”
He described his client as a philandering husband, but an overly forthcoming one whose own statements about Ms. Constand have remained entirely consistent over 12 years — no matter how damaging.
And Mr. McMonagle suggested that ensuing sexual assault allegations against Mr. Cosby from dozens of other women — and the worldwide scrutiny they have prompted — were the real reasons his client was facing charges that a decade ago a previous prosecutor had concluded wouldn’t hold up in court.
“We’re not here for Andrea Constand. We’re here for them and them,” Mr. McMonagle said, his voice rising as he motioned toward rows filled with reporters and a few of Mr. Cosby’s other accusers. “See this for what it is. Stop this!”
In his closing argument, Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin R. Steele attempted to focus attention back onto the trial’s central accuser, calling her a victim who showed great courage and withstood hours of questioning last week on the witness stand.
Mr. Steele stuck largely to providing legal definitions and rehashing the evidence presented in the case. But he also raised his voice at times during his more than twohour statement. And he grew emotional when speaking about Ms. Constand, and accused Mr. Cosby’s lawyers of attempting to shame and exploit her.
“I would suggest to you that Andrea Constand is a real victim,” he said. “She is a victim who has come before you and bared something very personal and powerful for all to see.”
In a nod to Mr. McMonagle’s claim that former Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce L. Castor Jr. decided in 2005 not to seek charges against Mr. Cosby, Mr. Steele told jurors that decision had nothing to do with Ms. Constand’s credibility.
Mr. Steele said the key facts were not contested during the trial, and have remained consistent in Ms. Constand’s statements over time: Mr. Cosby got to know her and became a mentor; one night in 2004 he gave her pills at his Cheltenham home and they had a sexual encounter.
“She’s [passed] out and you’re doing stuff to her?” Mr. Steele said. “It’s not right. And it’s criminal.”
Mr. Steele also replayed for jurors recorded phone calls in which Mr. Cosby and hisrepresentatives offered to pay for Ms. Constand and her mother to visit him in Florida, and to set up an educational trust for her to attend graduate school.
“If you didn’t do anything wrong, why are you apologizing?’ Mr. Steele said, as if addressing the defendant. “You’re apologizing because you ingratiated yourself into this young woman’s life, you treated her well, you paid her attention and then you drugged her and you did what you wanted to.”
Judge O’Neill let deliberations start toward the end of the day. The jurors were picked in Allegheny County and sequestered near Norristown for the trial.