Convicted Cosby has a few words for court
80-year-old erupts when called ‘flight risk’
NORRISTOWN: Bill Cosby has not said much about the sexual assault accusations that have dogged him for years, but when he was convicted Thursday of drugging and assaulting Andrea Constand he decided to say a few words in the Norristown, Pennsylvania, courtroom. Including a crass one aimed at the prosecutor.
The 80-year-old actor, a fixture in American family entertainment for decades, erupted in response to a suggestion by the Montgomery County district attorney, Kevin R Steele, that his bail should be revoked because he was a potential flight risk and owned a plane.
“He doesn’t have a plane, you asshole!” Cosby shouted. It was all the more startling coming from a man once beloved as the mild Dr Cliff Huxtable on his hit NBC sitcom, the Jell-O pudding pitchman and the creator of the character Fat Albert.
Judge Steven T O’Neill told Cosby to pipe down — “Enough of that!”
But he disagreed with the notion that the actor seemed likely to skip town. He said Cosby could be released on US$1 million bail (about 32 million baht) but should surrender his passport and stay in his home nearby.
The court outburst drew a lot of attention because — besides the vulgarity — it was one of the rare times Cosby has said anything in public in connection with the case or the dozens of sexual assault allegations made against him.
Though he has denied all of the accusations made against him, he did not testify in his own defence during the trial that ended on Thursday.
Here are a few other times he has spoken out.
Cosby refused to answer questions about sexual assault during a taped interview with The Associated Press in 2014. After the interview, he said he did not want anyone to see the tape.
Instead, the AP released the tape, shining new light on the decades-old allegations and helping to ignite a firestorm that caused NBC and Netflix to cancel two of Cosby’s television projects.
“There is no comment about that and I’ll tell you why,” Cosby said, when asked
about the allegations. “I think you were told, I don’t want to compromise your integrity, but I don’t talk about it.”
After the interview ended, while the camera was running and Cosby was still wearing a microphone, he said he wanted the tape to be disposed of.
“I would appreciate it if it was scuttled,” he said. “I think if you want to consider yourself to be serious, that it will not appear anywhere.”
When the reporter said he would have to ask his boss what to do with the tape, Cosby said to one of his handlers,
standing slightly off camera, “I think you need to get on the phone with his person. Immediately.”
Shortly after the AP interview was made public, the Radar Online site published the audio of an interview Cosby did with The National Enquirer in 2005 about sexual assault allegations against him by Tamara Green, who said he drugged and groped her in 1970.
Cosby did not explicitly deny the allegations but said he thought the media was treating him unfairly because he was famous. He was especially upset by a report that he had hired a lawyer to defend him from Ms Green’s accusation.
“I guess that a celebrity trying to protect him or herself is not supposed to use every ounce of protection?” he said. “But this is all about celebrity, period!”
In a meandering interview with ABC News in 2015, Cosby, who frequently lectured African-American young people on personal responsibility, said he expected to be called a hypocrite.
“It’s interesting. When I talk to people they will say, ‘This is a situation that’s unprecedented’. I, my family, my friends, I have been in this business 52 years,” he said. “I’ve never seen anything like this. And reality is the situation. And I can’t speak.”
The interviewer, Linsey Davis, said during the segment that she did not think Cosby understood the “media furore” produced by the dozens of women who, by that point, had accused him of sexual assault.
“I can’t speak on that,” he said, when asked about the charges. “I just don’t want to argue. I don’t talk about it.”