Prosecutor: Cosby relied on image to lure, hurt women
NORRISTOWN, PA. — The jury in Bill Cosby’s sexual assault retrial was poised to begin deliberating Tuesday after prosecutors portrayed the 80-year-old former TV star as a serial predator who drugged and molested a woman 14 years ago. The defense called Cosby’s accuser a “pathological liar” scheming for a big payday.
The first big celebrity trial of the #MeToo era pit Cosby, the beloved comedian whose career and good-guy repu- tation were destroyed by a barrage of allegations involving drugs and sex, against a former Temple University women’s basketball admin- istrator who testified that he gave her pills and violated her at his suburban Phila- delphia mansion.
Five other women testified the same thing had happened to them.
“He is nothing like the image that he played on TV,” prosecutor Kristen Feden told jurors in her closing argument. “In fact, he utilized that image and cloaked it around himself so that he could gain the trust, gain the confidences of these aspir- ing, unsuspecting women.”
The defense urged jurors to acquit, saying 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 Cosby’s first trial deliberated for more than 52 hours over six days last year without reach- ing a verdict.
Defense attorneys Tom Mesereau and Kathleen Bliss said in their closing argument that chief accuser Andrea Constand consented to sexual activity, then leveled false accusations against the “Cosby Show” star so she could sue him and extract a big settlement.
“You’re dealing with a pathological liar, members of the jury,” said Mesereau, who won an acquittal in Michael Jackson’s 2005 child-molestation case. “You are.”
Cosby’s wife of 54 years looked on from the gallery as his lawyers pleaded with the jury to clear him, the first time she has attended the trial. Camille Cosby, 74, had stayed away as the pros- ecution built its case that Cosby maintained a sordid double life, plying women with drugs and preying on them sexually.
Before the jury came in, she went to the defense table and put her arm around her husband. They embraced, “Yes, you did hear about smiled and chatted, and he a con,” Feden said, her gave her a peck on the cheek. voice rising as she moved
When it was the prosecu- toward Cosby and pointed tion’s turn to argue, Camille at him. “The perpetrator of Cosby left the courtroom, that con is this man, sitting and Constand entered. right here.”
Constand, 45, alleges She also called out Cosby Cosby kno c ked her out for smirking during her prewith three pills he called sentation.
“your friends” and molested “This is his con, and he’s her in January 2004. Her laughing like it’s funny, account was bolstered by but there’s nothing funny the testimony of five other about stripping a woman of women who took the stand her decency,” Feden said. and said Cosby had drugged “There’s nothing funny about and assaulted them, too — that, Mr. Cosby.” including one woman who The defense, meanwhile, asked him through her tears, highlighted more than a “You remember, don’t you, dozen inconsistencies in Mr. Cosby?” what Constand has said over
After last year’s hung the years. jury, the defense team also Cosby’s lawyers also painsmounted a far more aggres- takingly reviewed phone and sive effort to stoke doubts travel records for Cosby and about Constand’s credibility. Constand, as well as a sched
Their star witness was ule for the Temple womMarguerite Jackson, a foren’s basketball team, saying mer Temple University colthey are proof the alleged league of Constand’s who tesassault couldn’t have haptified that Constand spoke pened when she says it did. of framing a high-profile Prosecutors have noted that person for the purpose of Cosby’s travel records have filing a lawsuit. Constand large gaps in time. received nearly $3.4 million In arg u ing over when from Cosby over a decade ago Cosby’s encounter with — a settlement Mesereau said Constand took place, Coswas “one of the biggest high- by’s lawyers sought to sugway robberies of all time.” gest that the comedian was
Cosby has said he gave charged after the 12-year statConstand 1½ tablets of the ute of limitations for prosover-the-counter cold and ecuting him had run out. allergy medicine Benadryl to Bliss argued that Cosby, help her relax before what he once revered as America’s called a consensual encoun- Dad, was an innocent man ter. The defense ripped the caught up in the “emotion other accusers, saying they and anger” of the #MeToo were motivated by the pros- move m ent against sexpect of money and fame to ual misconduct. Cosby come forward in recent years was arrested years before with fabricated accounts. #MeToo became a cultural
Feden bristled at what she force and took down famous called the defense’s “horrimen like Harvey Weinstein, ble character assassination” Matt Lauer, Kevin Spacey of Constand and the other and Sen. Al Franken. women. Bliss also suggested that
She called Cosby the true Constand and Cosby were con artist — wresting that having an affair, and that she label from Cosby’s lawyers, was the aggressor, “cavortwho had applied it to Coning around with a married stand throughout the twoman old enough to be her week trial. grandfather.”