Bill Cosby gets 3 to 10 years in 2004 assault
Pa. judge orders comic to be locked up after rejecting bail request
NORRISTOWN, PA. — His Hollywood career and good-guy image in ruins, Bill Cosby was led away to prison in handcuffs Tuesday at age 81for perhaps the rest of his days, sentenced to 3 to 10 years behind bars for drugging and sexually assaulting a woman at his gated estate.
The punishment made him the first celebrity of the #MeToo era to be sent to prison and completed the dizzying, latein-life fall from grace for the comedian, TV star and breaker of racial barriers.
“It is time for justice. Mr. Cosby, this has all circled back to you. The time has come,” Montgomery County Judge Steven O’Neill said.
He quoted from victim Andrea Constand’s statement to the court, in which she said Cosby took her “beautiful, young spirit and crushed it.”
Cosby declined to speak before the sentence came down, and afterward sat laughing and chatting with his defense team. His wife of 54 years, Camille, was not in court.
Constand smiled upon hearing the punishment and was hugged by others in the courtroom.
In a blistering statement, Cosby spokesman Andrew Wyatt said the comic legend was subjected to “most racist and sexist trial in the history of the United States.”
Among other things, Wyatt said all three of the psychologists who testified against Cosby were “white women who make money off of accusing black men of being sexual predators,” and he accused prosecutors of using a doctored recording of a telephone conversation between Constand’s mother and Cosby.
Cosby’s lawyers asked that he be allowed to remain free on bail while he appeals his conviction, but the judge appeared incredulous over the request and ordered him locked up immediately, saying that “he could quite possibly be a danger to the community.”
The comedian must serve the minimum of three years before becoming eligible for parole.
“For decades, the defendant has been able to hide his true self and hide his crimes using his fame and fortune. He’s hidden behind a character created, Dr. Cliff Huxtable,” Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele said at a news conference, referring to Cosby’s best-known role. But “now, finally, Bill Cosby has been unmasked, and we have seen the real man as he is headed off to prison,” Steele said.
Constand stood at Steele’s side but shook her head to say she had no comment.
Former model Janice Dickinson, who was among the 60 or so women who have come forward to accuse Cosby of drugging and violating them over the past five decades, looked at him in the courtroom and said: “Here’s the last laugh, pal.”
The punishment, which also included a $25,000 fine, came at the end of a two-day hearing at which the judge declared Cosby a “sexually violent predator” — a modern-day scarlet letter that subjects him to monthly counseling and requires that neighbors and schools be notified of his whereabouts.
The comic, once known as America’s Dad for his role on the top-rated “Cosby Show” in the 1980s, was convicted in April of violating Constand, Temple University women’s basketball administrator, at his suburban Philadelphia mansion in 2004.
Constand testified that Cosby gave her what she thought were herbal pills to ease stress, then penetrated her with his fingers as she lay immobilized on a couch. Cosby claimed the encounter was consensual, and his lawyers branded her a “con artist” who framed the comedian to get a big payday — a $3.4 million settlement she received over a decade ago.
Five other accusers took the stand at the trial as part of an effort by prosecutors to portray him as a predator. People smile during a news conference with Andrea Constand, center — who was sexually assaulted by comedian Bill Cosby — after the sentencing of the comedian Tuesday in Norristown, Pa.
Cosby faced anywhere from probation to 10 years in prison. His lawyers asked for house arrest, saying Cosby is too old and vulnerable to do time in prison. Prosecutors asked for five to 10 years behind bars.
Sonia Ossorio, president of the National Organization for Women of New York, credited Cosby’s accusers with helping pave the way for the #MeToo movement.
“Bill Cosby seeing the inside of a prison cell sends a strong message that predators — no matter who they are, from Hollywood to Wall Street to the Supreme Court — can no longer be protected at the expense of victims,” she said.
Cosby will spend his first night behind bars at a new state prison in suburban Philadelphia.
Cosby spent a few hours at the county jail Tuesday before heading to SCI Phoenix, a 3,830-bed lockup that opened two months ago.
Corrections officials at Phoenix will assess Cosby’s needs to determine where he’ll serve the bulk of his state prison sentence.
Constand went to police a year after waking up in a fog at Cosby’s estate, her clothes askew, only to have the district attorney pass on the case.
Another DA reopened the file a decade later and charged the TV star after stand-up comic Hannibal Buress’ riff about Cosby being a rapist prompted other women to come forward and after a federal judge, acting on a request from The Associated Press, unsealed some of Cosby’s startling, decade-old testimony in Constand’s related civil suit.
In his testimony, Cosby described sexual encounters with a string of actresses, models and other young women and talked about obtaining quaaludes to give to those he wanted to sleep with.
Cosby’s first trial in 2017 ended with a hung jury. This booking photo obtained from the Montgomery County Correctional Facility in Eagleville, Pa., shows comedian Bill Cosby after his sentencing.