The Bill Cosby case: What happens next?
Questions remain, sentencing awaits
“The fight is not over,” defense vows, but other cases are waiting. Where the story stands.
The jury in Bill Cosby’s retrial found him guilty of aggravated assault Thursday after about 12 hours of deliberation.
His conviction on all three counts means they determined beyond a reasonable doubt that the comedian molested Temple University staffer Andrea Constand when she visited his Philadelphia-area home in 2004.
But now that the verdict is in, what happens next?
Cosby is not going to jail — at least not yet.
Judge Steven O’Neill allowed the comedian, who already had posted a $1 million bond, to remain free on bail until his sentencing, to the frustration of prosecutors.
On Friday, O’Neill said sentencing could take place in 75 days. He ordered Cosby to undergo a “sexually violent predator” assessment before sentencing. And he clarified that Cosby will be restricted to house arrest, will have to wear a GPS monitor and can leave his home only to visit his doctors or lawyers within a five-county area.
“It’s supposed to happen within 90 days (of conviction), but if all the parties agree it happens after that, it’s fine,” says Brian Zeiger, a defense lawyer who tries cases in Montgomery County, Pa., and the neighboring Philadelphia and Bucks counties.
Michael Donio, a retired New Jersey superior court judge, says the next legal battle will be at sentencing. If Cosby is sentenced to prison, he’d go directly behind bars. But Donio expects his lawyers to argue that he should be out on bond during the appeal.
Such a request, Donio said, is usually not granted.
How much time might Cosby serve?
Cosby, who is 80, blind and in declining health, was convicted on three counts, each carrying up to 10 years in prison, so any jail time could be a death sentence.
According to state law, O’Neill can sentence Cosby to either a consecutive prison term ( back-to-back terms) or concurrent ones, meaning he would serve them all at the same time, with the longest term determining the duration of his prison stay.
“I would think that it would be a concurrent situation,” says Zeiger, who has tried numerous sex offense cases. In his experience, whether a defendant gets concurrent sentencing “depends on the judge and the number of victims. In this case, they only proceeded with one. But I think they would also con- sider his age.”
University of Buffalo criminal law professor Michael Boucai isn’t so sure.
“In this case, some would say that Cosby’s advanced age counsels in favor of leniency; others might see decades of comfortable impunity,” he says. “Some might want to see Cosby treated more leniently in light of all the good he has done in other facets of his life; others may bristle at what they see as a particularly ugly hypocrisy.”
Fellow Philadelphia-area defense attorney Steven Fairlie says Cosby is likely to get a concurrent sentence because the charges all stem from the same crime.
But Fairlie also points out that possible victim testimony at the sentencing hearing and Cosby’s outburst after the guilty verdict — Cosby stood up and shouted vulgarities at Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele — could lead the judge to consider a harsher sentence of up to 10 years.
“Hurling insults at the district attorney is not going to help his case,” he says.
The length of Cosby’s sentence will determine where he serves time.
Zeiger says that if Cosby’s sentence is less than one or two years, he’ll probably serve it at the Montgomery County Correctional Facility in Eagleville, Pa., or through house arrest. Zeiger discounts the possibility of work release, citing Cosby’s age.
“If it’s one to two years or more, he would go into the state system in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,” he says, “and then the trial court would lose jurisdiction over his custody.”
Donio says Cosby’s lawyers probably will argue that a prison will be unable to take care of Cosby, who has said he is completely blind. If the defense team can win that argument and a jail assessment agrees, Cosby could get house arrest or probation.
The defense team has vowed to appeal his conviction.
As he left the courthouse Thursday, lead defense attorney Tom Mesereau vowed “The fight is not over,” indicating his intent to appeal. But an appeal cannot proceed until Cosby is sentenced.
“After the day of sentencing, you have 10 days to file a motion for reconsideration for certain things, like there wasn’t enough evidence to convict or something is wrong with the sentencing,” Zeiger says. “The
10-day motion stops the clock on everything. ... It’s there intentionally for certain things that allow a trial court to correct simple mistakes.”
Next, he says, the judge would have the power to correct the mistake pointed out in the 10-day motion and remedy it. “It could be a new trial; it could be new sentencing. If the 10-day motion is denied, the case moves to a higher court, and the judge then just has to write an opinion explaining why he ruled a certain way, and then the superior court has jurisdiction.”
He adds that if the issues the defense plans to raise on appeal don’t fit the parameters of a 10-day motion, they can immediately file a notice of appeal within 30 days of sentencing. “But if you don’t put (the tiny mistakes) in the
10-day motion, you can’t appeal them at a later date.”
Civil cases filed by other accusers wait in the wings. About five dozen women have accused Cosby of drugging or raping them dating back to the mid-1960s.
The civil cases against Cosby will proceed.
“What’s next?” attorney Lisa Bloom tweeted after the guilty verdict came in. “My defamation case on behalf of Janice Dickinson against Bill Cosby, which we’ve been fighting and winning for three-plus years, goes on.”
She added, “Mr. Cosby, I’m looking forward to taking your deposition.”
Dickinson’s California suit asserts that Cosby and lawyer Martin Singer defamed her by calling her a “liar” after she publicly accused Cosby of raping her in 2014, following several other women who had already stepped forward to say Cosby had assaulted them. Cosby has appealed a ruling allowing Dickinson’s case to proceed.
Three other civil cases filed by 10 other accusers wait in the wings, each having been put on hold until Cosby’s criminal case is resolved. About five dozen women have accused Cosby of drugging or raping them in episodes dating back to the mid1960s. Cosby has denied any wrongdoing.
All of those allegations were too old to pursue in criminal court under statutes of limitation. Some of Cosby’s accusers have filed lawsuits in civil courts.