Cosby trial faces #MeToo anger

New jury will weigh sex assault charge in a post-Weinstein environment

PHILADELPHIA Jurors couldn’t agree the first time around whether to accept a woman’s story that “America’s Dad” Bill Cosby sexually assaulted her more than a decade ago. Now he faces a retrial in a vastly different cultural climate, where powerful men from Hollywood to the U.S. Senate are being toppled by allegations of sexual misconduct.

The Cosby jury was deadlocked on charges he drugged and molested a woman in 2004, and the judge declared a mistrial in June. But that was before the revelations about movie producer Harvey Weinstein and the #MeToo movement burst into the public sphere.

The shift is clearly on Cosby’s mind. He quipped to a reporter after shaking her hand Wednesday night at a Philadelphia restaurant: “Please don’t put me on #MeToo. I just shook your hand like a man.”

Legal experts say the seismic change in believing and supporting victims of sexual harassment and assault — and the near-immediate ramifications for so many famous men — will surely trickle into the Cosby retrial, slated to begin in April.

The Cosby Show star is charged with knocking out accuser Andrea Constand with pills and sexually assaulting her at his home near Philadelphia. He has said Constand, a Canadian former executive with Temple University’s women’s basketball program, consented to their sexual encounter.

Calls and emails seeking comment from Cosby’s lawyers weren’t returned.

During his first trial, Cosby lawyers portrayed him and Constand as lovers who had enjoyed secret “romantic interludes” and tried to sow doubt about her claims.

They reminded jurors she had waited a year to contact the authorities and suggested her story evolved during police interviews. They also noted Constand made dozens of telephone calls to Cosby, then a member of Temple’s board of trustees, after the alleged assault.

“This isn’t talking to a trustee. This is talking to a lover,” former Cosby lawyer Brian McMonagle said of one call that lasted 49 minutes. “Why are we running from the truth of this case — this relationship? Why?”

In a case like Cosby’s, in which evidence is primarily testimonial and not physical, credibility is key.

But as the #MeToo movement gains momentum, the accused have lost jobs, TV shows, book deals and a Senate seat.

Constand’s lawyer said she was floored to hear Cosby’s #MeToo comment.

“Apparently (he) still believes sexual assault is a laughing matter,” said attorney Dolores Troiani. “You have to hope he is alone in that opinion.”