Jurors work into 2nd night
Deliberations continue in entertainer’s sexual assault trial
After more than 15 hours of deliberations, a jury weighing the fate of entertainer Bill Cosby still had not reached a verdict as of press time Tuesday at his sexual assault trial in Montgomery County Court.
The jury of seven men and five women was still deliberating into the late evening hours.
Cosby, who turns 80 in July, was awaiting a decision after 18 months of legal wrangling and a trial that lasted seven days before Judge Steven T. O’Neill and garnered worldwide media attention.
The jury deliberated four hours on Monday and returned
at 9 a.m. Tuesday to resume deliberations.
Cosby is charged with sexually assaulting a woman at his Cheltenham mansion in 2004.
The most dramatic moment during the trial came when his accuser, Andrea Constand, entered the courtroom to tell her story and faced Cosby, whose legacy was on the line, for the first time since his arrest. The charges were lodged against Cosby on Dec. 30, 2015, before the 12-year statute of limitations to file charges expired.
During the trial, Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin R. Steele alleged Cosby was a trusted friend and mentor who took advantage of a woman in a “vulnerable state,” plied Constand with “three blue pills” and sexually assaulted her at his Cheltenham mansion in mid-January 2004.
Constand, 44, of Ontario, Canada, testified over two days that after taking the blue pills she began slurring her words and became “frozen” or paralyzed and was unable to fight off Cosby’s sexual advances. The former director of women’s basketball operations at Temple University claimed Cosby placed her on a couch, touched her breasts, forced her to touch his penis and performed digital penetration all without her consent.
But defense lawyer Brian J. McMonagle argued Cosby was the victim of false accusations and that the entertainer and Constand had a “romantic relationship” and consensual sexual contact during the 2004 incident. At one point during the trial, McMonagle stood beside Cosby and suggested to jurors that while Cosby may have been an unfaithful husband, that didn’t make him a criminal.
William Henry Cosby Jr., as his name appeared on charging documents, faced three counts of aggravated indecent assault in connection with his alleged contact with Constand. The trial represented the first time Cosby, who played Dr. Cliff Huxtable on “The Cosby Show” from 1984 to 1992, had been charged with a crime despite allegations from dozens of women who claimed they were assaulted by the entertainer.
Pointing to what he claimed were Constand’s inconsistent statements, McMonagle and co-defense lawyer Angela C. Agrusa argued Constand initially told detectives she had limited phone contact with Cosby after the alleged incident, however, phone records showed she had called him 53 times. McMonagle said that evidence suggested Constand was talking to a “lover.”
But Steele and co-prosecutors Kristen Feden and M. Stewart Ryan suggested Constand was calling Cosby, a university trustee, about university business and argued Cosby’s conduct wasn’t “romantic” but was “criminal.”
Testimony revealed Constand, who was 31 at the time of the incident, did not report the allegations to police until a year later, in January 2005. The investigation initially was undertaken by former District Attorney Bruce L. Castor Jr., who in February 2005 determined there was insufficient and unreliable evidence to prosecute Cosby, who was 67 at the time.
Prosecutors reopened the investigation in July 2015 after Cosby’s deposition connected to a 2005 civil suit Constand filed against him was unsealed by a judge. In that deposition, Cosby, according to testimony, admitted he obtained quaaludes in the 1970s to give to women with whom he wanted to have sex. Prosecutors contend Cosby also admitted for the first time to developing a romantic interest in Constand when he saw her at a Temple basketball game and to having sexual contact with Constand.
Cosby also told investigators he gave Constand Benadryl on the night in question, “One whole and then one broke in half.”
While prosecutors did not specifically identify what they believed Cosby gave to Constand, with the evidence presented to the jury, they suggested it could have been Quaaludes or Benadryl. Testimony revealed Benadryl did come in a blue pill form around that time.
Constand also initially told authorities she had never been alone with Cosby before the night of the alleged incident, but testimony revealed she had previously been alone with Cosby on two other occasions when he made “suggestive” or sexual advances toward her.
McMonagle questioned why Constand would spend time alone with Cosby again when he previously made advances toward her.