Star Cosby convicted of drugging and molesting woman at his home
US COMEDIAN Bill Cosby has been convicted of drugging and sexually assaulting a woman in the first big celebrity trial of the #MeToo era.
A jury outside Philadelphia convicted star of three counts of aggravated indecent assault. The guilty verdict came less than a year after another jury was deadlocked.
Cosby, 80, was charged with assaulting Temple University employee Andrea Constand at his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004. His lawyer had called Ms Constand a “con artist” who levelled false accusations against Cosby so she could sue him.
Cosby could get up to 10 years in prison on each of the counts.
Dozens of women have come forward in recent years to say he drugged and assaulted them. Five of the other accusers testified against him at the retrial.
The panel of seven men and five women reached a verdict after deliberating for 14 hours over two days, vindicating prosecutors’ decision to retry the 80-yearold after his first trial ended with a hung jury less than a year ago.
Ms Constand, 45, a former Temple women’s basketball administrator, told jurors that Cosby knocked her out with three blue pills he called “your friends” before attacking her.
It was the only criminal case to arise from allegations from more than 60 women who said the former TV star drugged and molested them over five decades.
“The time for the defendant to escape justice is over,” prosecutor Stewart Ryan said in his closing argument. “It’s finally time for the defendant to dine on the banquet of his own consequences.”
Another prosecutor, Kristen Feden, said Cosby was “nothing like the image that he played on TV” as sweater-wearing, wisdomdispensing father of five Dr Cliff Huxtable on
Cosby’s retrial took place against the backdrop of #MeToo, the movement that has taken down powerful men in rapid succession, among them Harvey Weinstein, Matt Lauer, Kevin Spacey and Senator Al Franken.
The jurors all indicated they were aware of #MeToo but said before the trial they could remain impartial. Cosby’s lawyers slammed #MeToo, calling Cosby its victim and likening it to a witch hunt or a lynching.
After failing to win a conviction last year, prosecutors had more courtroom weapons at their disposal for the retrial.
The other accusers’ testimony helped move the case beyond a “he-said, she-said”, allowing prosecutors to argue that Cosby was a menace to women long before he met Ms Constand. Only one other accuser was permitted to testify at Cosby’s first trial.
Cosby’s new defence team, led by Michael Jackson lawyer Tom Mesereau, launched a highly aggressive attack on Constand and the other women. Their star witness, a long-time Temple employee, testified that Ms Constand once spoke of setting up a prominent person and suing. Ms Constand sued Cosby after prosecutors initially declined to file charges, settling with him for nearly $3.4m more than a decade ago. “You’re dealing with a pathological liar,” Mr Mesereau told the jury.
But Cosby himself had long ago confirmed sordid revelations about drugs and extramarital sex.
In a deposition he gave more than a decade ago as part of Ms Constand’s lawsuit, Cosby acknowledged he had obtained drugs to give to women he wanted to have sex with.