By Aaron Miller-
A jury of five women and seven men have begun deliberation over the fate of formerly well loved Bill Cosby.
In the first big celebrity trial of the #MeToo era, the jury will assess the charges that Cosby drugged and molested a woman at his suburban Philadelphia home 14 years ago.
Cosby stands accused of three charges of aggravated indecent assault against Andrea Constand. Constand, a former Temple University employee, alleges that Cosby caused her to lose consciousness after giving her three blue pills and a sip of wine and came to with him sexually assaulting her in January 2004 at his Philadelphia-area mansion.
If convicted, Cosby could face up to 10 years for each count, though prison sentences for similar crimes tend to run concurrently in Pennsylvania.
Last year, the jury, bused in from Allegheny County in Western Pennsylvania spent 52 hours over five days deliberating before a mistrial was declared. This trial has been driven by an intense determination by both sides to secure a victory. Cosby has been portrayed as a sexual predator who must finally face justice, whilst his accuser, Constand, painted as a pathological liar.
“The time for the defendant to escape justice is over. It’s finally time for the defendant to dine on the banquet of his own consequences,” prosecutor Stewart Ryan told the jury.
Cosby’s lawyers argued that the charges were based on “flimsy, silly, ridiculous evidence.”
Testimony from five other women that Cosby drugged and violated them will not have done his case any favors, unless it is suggested that they all have a joint perverse agenda. That possibility is the only grounds on which he can be exculpated of a series of allegation similar in pattern. Judge Steven O’Neill instructed jurors on the right to consider the women’s testimony as possible evidence Cosby had a pattern of predatory behavior but prohibited them from using it to conclude him as “a person of bad character.”
The revelation to jurors that Cosby had settled Constant with $3.4 million, dubbed as “one of the biggest highway robberies of all time” will carry some weight on the juror’s mind. How it will sway them is unknown.
Cosby’s lawyers contend the encounter with Constand was consensual, and say she falsely accused Cosby so she could sue him and extract a big settlement. They called to the stand a woman who said Constand spoke of framing a prominent person — testimony that was blocked at last year’s trial.
“I have never seen or heard of a retrial that was as different as this was from the first trial,” said lawyer Dennis McAndrews, who has been following the retrial and is not associated with either side. “The prosecution now had multiple victims and the defense had the issue of money, which were powerful weapons for both sides.”
The defense highlighted over a dozen inconsistencies in Constand’s words over the years and meticulously reviewed phone and travel records, saying they prove the alleged assault couldn’t have happened when she says it did. They argued that he was charged after the 12-year statute of limitations for prosecuting him had run out.
