Found Guilty of Sexual Assault – Bill Cosby Faces 30 Years in Prison
(The AEGIS Alliance) – Comedian Bill Cosby’s first trial ended in a hung jury under a year ago. Bill Cosby was convicted on Thursday of molesting and drugging a former Temple University athletics department employee. According to Bloomberg, this has been described as the very first guilty verdict for the #MeToo era.
A Pennsylvania courthouse jury has convicted the former ‘Cosby Show’ TV star on three counts of aggravated indecent assault. Cosby is 80 years old, and is possible to be sentenced to up to 10 years for each count, with a maximum total of 30 years, and a minimum sentence of five years in prison.
Although he has been accused of sexual assault, harassment, and even rape by almost 60 women, with allegations going as far back as the 1970s, these charges in Cosby’s criminal trial were focused on him violating Andrea Constand at his suburban home in Philadelphia that took place in 2004. Cosby’s lawyers attempted to frame Constand as a ‘con-artist’ who dreamt up fake accusations so she could file a lawsuit against Cosby. The verdict was reached by the jury on their second day of deliberations.
Prosecutors utilized Cosby’s admissions in the past about sex and drugs along with five other women’s testimony as vital elements in the case. Cosby now awaits sentencing by Judge Steven O’Neill, who had presided over the trial. Constand also sees a win in a civil settlement of almost $3.4 million from Bill Cosby.
According to the CBS affiliate of Philadelphia, the jury did ask Judge O’Neill about the legal term and meaning of ‘consent.’ The judge made a reply that the jurors were already given the definitions of these charges. The second day that followed, the jury decided to revisit the star defense witness’s testimony of Marguerite Jackson who stated that Constand has spoken once of framing a prominent individual to win a big payday. It is apparent that testimony was not enough to gain Cosby his freedom.
The five women and seven men who were on the jury listened as six Cosby accusers testified that the man who was for a time revered as ‘America’s Dad’ was living a sordid secret life which involved preying on women to gratify himself sexually.
Constand alleged that Cosby put her to sleep with three pills he said were ‘your friends’ and then molested Constand at his mansion in the suburban areas of Philadelphia in January of the year 2004. A CBS reporter stated that Cosby had no emotions as the verdict was being read.
In a statement made out of the courthouse briefly, Bill Cosby’s attorney, Tom Mesereau said “we’re very disappointed in the verdict,” and mentioned that Cosby’s legal team intends to appeal “very strongly.”
Cosby reportedly lashed out in the courtroom amid a post-verdict discussion about whether to revoke his bail because he owns a private plane. Cosby shouted, “Doesn’t matter that I have a plane, you a**hole!”
Whoa. Amid a post-verdict discussion over whether to revoke convicted Cosby's bail, the DA noted he owns a private plane.
"Doesn’t matter that I have a plane, you a**hole!" Cosby shouted, per @MattPieper.
— Steven Portnoy (@stevenportnoy) April 26, 2018
Kyle James Lee – The AEGIS Alliance – This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
