Entertainer’s ties to Atlanta include Spelman College

Comic actor Bill Cosby, whose sexual assault trial resulted in a deadlocked jury and mistrial in Norristown, Pa., has established a number of Atlanta ties over the years.

Cosby’s “television daughter,” Atlanta actress Keshia Knight Pulliam, walked in with him into the Pennsylvania courthouse one day last week. “Thank you to Cliff and Claire’s 4-year-old daughter (Rudy) and the Brilliant Spelman Alumnus,” Cosby’s verified Twitter account posted following the day’s proceedings. That was followed by a three-hashtag post saying simply, “#TheCosbyShow, #KeishaKnightPulliam (sic) and #CameToCourtToHearTheTruth.”

Pulliam, now a mom herself, played little Rudy on “The Cosby Show” as a child.

Like Pulliam, two of Cosby’s real-life daughters attended Atlanta’s Spelman College, and Cosby and his wife, Camille, donated $20 million in the late 1980s — the largest ever personal gift to a historically black college or university at the time. It helped fund a new academic center housing state-of-the art classrooms, labs and a fine arts museum; as well as the endowed professorship.

In 2015, as allegations that Cosby drugged and abused women began to mount, Spelman canceled a professorship Cosby had funded and returned the money. He’s been stripped of numerous honorary degrees, including ones conferred in years past by George Washington University and Boston University.

The 79-year-old entertainer did not testify, as he indicated during a radio interview on the eve of jury selection.

“When you have to deal with examination, cross examination, (there’s) more than two sides to every story. Sometimes it’s four or five,” he told Sirius XM radio host Michael Smerconish in an expansive, often meandering conversation during which he offered few succinct answers. “I just don’t want to sit there and have to figure out what I believe is a truthful answer.”

Seven men and five women started deliberating late Monday after six days of testimony. The defense called just one witness, and Cosby’s attorneys have portrayed the 2004 incident with Andrea Constand as a consensual, romantic liaison.

Pulliam’s television brother Malcolm-Jamal Warner, known as Theo Huxtable on the popular sitcom, has been more muted in his response as the trial approached.

“I’m neither defending him nor throwing him under the bus,” he said during a 2016 interview with Extra. “I’m looking at the media’s role and how the media forms public opinion.” Warner also complained that Cosby’s legal woes were having an economic ripple effect on him. “It’s literally taking money out of my pocket,” Warner said during a visit to “The Real,” shortly after “Cosby Show” reruns had been yanked off the air.

Atlanta-based Bounce TV has since returned “Cosby” reruns to its lineup, saying in a statement to the Huffington Post in November, “While we take very seriously the accusations against Bill Cosby, our research showed that African-American consumers see a distinction between Bill Cosby, the man, and the iconic TV character Cliff Huxtable.”