Bill Cosby Found Guilty In Sex Assault Retrial
NORRISTOWN, Pa. (CBSNewYork/AP) - Bill Cosby has been found guilty in his sexual assault retrial.
A jury outside Philadelphia convicted the "Cosby Show" star of three counts of aggravated indecent assault on Thursday. He faces up to 10 years in prison on each count.
The guilty verdict came less than a year after another jury deadlocked on the charges. This panel of seven men and five women reached a verdict after deliberating 14 hours over two days, vindicating prosecutors' decision to retry Cosby after his first trial ended with a hung jury less than a year ago.
KYW-TV's Joe Holden reported that Cosby showed no emotion when the verdict was read, even as a sentence could mean he spends his final years behind bars. He could get up to 10 years in prison on each of the three counts of aggravated indecent assault, but is likely to get less than that under state sentencing guidelines.
Given his age, even a modest term could mean he will die behind bars.
Cosby was released on a $1 million bail and could not leave the court before first surrendering his passport. He was ordered not to leave the county and required to undergo sexually violent predator assessment.
However, when Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele asked to have Cosby's bail revoked because he has a plane. The actor then lashed out at the DA, slamming something down on the desk and uttering an expletive.
"He doesn't have a plane, you a******," Cosby yelled at Steele.
Cosby was charged with violating Temple University employee Andrea Constand at his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004.
Constand, 45, told jurors that Cosby knocked her out with three blue pills he called "your friends" and then penetrated her with his fingers as she lay immobilized, unable to resist or say no.
Cosby's lawyer called Constand a "con artist" who leveled false accusations against the star so she could sue him.
It was the only criminal case to arise from a barrage of allegations from more than 60 women who said the former TV star drugged and molested them over a span of 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, wisdom-dispensing father of five Dr. Cliff Huxtable on "The Cosby Show."
She also called out Cosby for smirking during her presentation.
"This is his con, and he's laughing like it's funny, but there's nothing funny about stripping a woman of her decency," Feden said. "There's nothing funny about that, Mr. Cosby."
The defense highlighted more than a dozen inconsistencies in what Constand has said over the years.
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 Constand. Only one other accuser was permitted to testify at Cosby's first trial.
Cosby's new defense team, led by Michael Jackson lawyer Tom Mesereau, launched a highly aggressive attack on Constand and the other women.
Their star witness was Marguerite Jackson, a former Temple University colleague of Constand's who testified that Constand spoke of framing a high-profile person for the purpose of filing a lawsuit. Constand received nearly $3.4 million from Cosby over a decade ago -- a settlement that Mesereau argued was "one of the biggest highway robberies of all time."
"You're dealing with a pathological liar," Mesereau told the jury.
His colleague on the defense team, Katheen Bliss, derided the other accusers as home-wreckers and suggested they made up their stories in a bid for money and fame.
But Cosby himself had long ago confirmed sordid revelations about drugs and extramarital sex.
In a deposition he gave over a decade ago as part of Constand's lawsuit, Cosby acknowledged he had obtained quaaludes to give to women he wanted to have sex with, "the same as a person would say, `Have a drink."' The sedative was a popular party drug before the U.S. banned it more than 30 years ago.
(© Copyright 2018 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
