Bill Cosby is found guilty in sexual assault retrial

Bill Cosby has been found guilty of drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand.

Judge Steven T O’Neill repeatedly called for order as the court erupted as the jury delivered its shock verdict, unanimously finding Cosby guilty on all three counts of aggravated sexual assault: administering an intoxicant, rendering his victim unconscious and penetrating her without consent.

The seven men and five women reached their verdict after 14 hours of deliberation and a trial lasting 14 days.

Constand was in court to hear the verdict read at Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown, Pennsylvania. The alternate jurors filed into the back of the gallery.

O’Neill requested everyone to respect the decorum order that has been in place throughout the trial and to keep order as the verdict was delivered.

The 80-year-old actor now faces spending the rest of his life in prison as each count carries a sentence of up to ten years imprisonment.  

Bill Cosby has been found guilty of drugging and raping Andrea Constand in his home in 2004

Cosby accuser Lili Bernard let out a sob as the foreperson delivered the guilty verdict on each charge.

O’Neill thanked the jury for their service, ‘for removing themselves from their families and lives.’ He told them ‘you have sacrificed much for you country and justice.’

Cosby did not react to the verdict, but instead sat sat in silence with his eyes cast down. His wife was not in court.

Andrew Wyatt, Cosby’s spokesperson who has spoken so vehemently in the disgraced actor’s defense throughout the trial, sat in stunned silence, leaning forward in his seat with his face a mask of misery.

O’Neill discharged the jury at 1.55pm.

The verdict is a devastating blow to Cosby’s lead attorney, Thomas Mesereau – the man famous for securing Michael Jackson’s acquittal in 2005.

But it is vindication for Constand, the five other accusers who testified in this case and the more than 60 others who claim to have been assaulted by Cosby over the years.

It is a career-saving victory for Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele who rode to election on his promise to bring Cosby to justice.

Last June jurors failed to reach a verdict after hearing Constand’s testimony that she lost consciousness after taking three little blue pills from Cosby who told her they were ‘her friends’ and would help her relax.

She claimed Cosby then digitally penetrated her and assaulted her while she was immobile and ‘could not fight him off.’

After close to 53 hours of deliberation they remained ‘hopelessly deadlocked’ and O’Neill was forced to declare a mistrial.

Back then Steele vowed to re-try the case and promised that the re-trial would not be a re-run of the first.

Bill Cosby walks into Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown, Pennsylvania, for the second day of jury deliberations in his sexual assault retrial

Bill Cosby walks into Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown, Pennsylvania, for the second day of jury deliberations in his sexual assault retrial

Exhausted jurors ended day one of its considerations after rehearing excerpts from Cosby’s old deposition evidence

Exhausted jurors ended day one of its considerations after rehearing excerpts from Cosby’s old deposition evidence

Cosby stands accused on three counts of aggravated indecent assault, and each charge carries a maximum penalty of ten years

Cosby stands accused on three counts of aggravated indecent assault, and each charge carries a maximum penalty of ten years

Cosby, pictured with spokesman Andrew Wyatt, is accused of drugging and raping Andrea Constand in his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004

Cosby, pictured with spokesman Andrew Wyatt, is accused of drugging and raping Andrea Constand in his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004

And at the beginning this seemed to be true of both the prosecution and the defense.

For a start there actually was a defense. Cosby’s previous defense led by Brian McMonagle, assisted by Angela Agrusa lasted just six minutes.

McMonagle painted Constand as a bitter ex-lover out to punish Cosby when their affair went south. 

‘It’s a relationship,’ he bellowed in his closing statement as he urged the jury to ‘end this madness’. 

This time Cosby had switched out McMonagle and Agrusa for a superannuated team led by Los Angeles attorney Thomas Mesereau, famous for getting Michael Jackson acquitted in 2005.

Joined by co-counsel Kathleen Bliss, Becky James, Lane Vines and associates Rachael Robinson, Jaya Gupta and Jason Hicks their sheer numbers made them a formidable presence. 

According to Mesereau, a striking courtroom figure with his mop of snow-white hair, honeyed voice and hand-tailored suits, this case was all about ‘money, money and lots more money’. 

Constand was a manipulative ‘con-artist’ out to extort a lonely old man.

He even had a witness – Marguerite Margo Jackson previously excluded on the grounds that Constand had claimed not to know her – who would tell the jury that Constand once shared an idea to falsely claim that a celebrity had assaulted her for the sole purpose of bringing a lucrative lawsuit.

That was always her plan according to the defense. And when she brought a civil suit and settled for $3.4 million in 2006, Mesereau crowed, ‘She pulled it off’. 

He said the prosecution’s attempt to depict Constand as ‘some innocent babe in the woods’ who naively took drugs from Cosby that night was ludicrous.

According to Mesereau she was a woman whose dreams fame and fortune had fallen flat. A career in sports broadcasting had come to nothing.

Andrea Constand was in court on Wednesday (pictured above) as the jury started its deliberations

Cosby appeared positive as he walked into court on Wednesday morning ahead of the verdict. At one point he pointed to the sky

Cosby appeared positive as he walked into court on Wednesday morning ahead of the verdict. At one point he pointed to the sky

Cosby did not react to the verdict, but instead sat sat in silence with his eyes cast down. He's pictured above before jury deliberations on Wednesday morning

Cosby did not react to the verdict, but instead sat sat in silence with his eyes cast down. He’s pictured above before jury deliberations on Wednesday morning

She was a misfit with a history of drug issues and financial problems, who stiffed former roommates on credit card and utility bills and once ran a pyramid scheme with her then close friend Sheri Williams.

The prosecution team was the same – Steele, deputy District Attorney M Stewart Ryan and Kristen Feden who is now in private practice in Philadelphia but returned as a special prosecutor.

But where last time O’Neill had permitted just one of the more than 60 other women to have accused Cosby of sexual assault to testify, this time he admitted five.

The first to testify to his ‘prior bad acts’ was Heidi Thomas. She was a 24-year-old aspiring actress and model when, in 1984, Cosby invited her to a remote ranch house in Nevada with the promise of mentoring her. Asked to do a ‘cold read’ of a drunk woman he offered her a glass of wine to use as a prop.

She said she lost consciousness after sipping the Chablis and had only ‘snapshots’ of memories of the next four days. 

She recalled him on top of her trying to force himself into her mouth. And she remembered her head at the bottom of a bed and his voice telling her ‘your friend’s going to cum again’. 

Thomas called him ‘a serial rapist’ from the stand.

Chelan Lasha was next. She wept, barely able to breathe at points, as she said she was a 17-year-old-model when she took pills offered to her by Cosby that he said would help the cold from which she was suffering.

She had visited his suite in the Las Vegas Hilton on the understanding that he was her friend and mentor. Instead she lay helpless as he pinched her breasts, humped her leg and grunted until she felt something warm on her leg.

More than 50 women have accused the disgraced comedian, 80, of sexual assault and misconduct

More than 50 women have accused the disgraced comedian, 80, of sexual assault and misconduct

As Cosby walked into the courtroom on Wednesday morning, he appeared to have a tight smile on his face

As Cosby walked into the courtroom on Wednesday morning, he appeared to have a tight smile on his face

In a moment of high emotion Lasha had looked across the courtroom and said ‘You remember don’t you Mr Cosby?’

Cosby remained impassive.

Janice Baker-Kinney, the third woman to take the stand, was a 24-year-old bartender at Harrah’s Casino in Las Vegas when she and a friend went to a ‘pizza party’ at Cosby’s invitation when he was headlining there in 1982

She admitted to taking what she thought were two Quaaludes. Her next memory is of waking up naked in bed with Cosby, with a ‘sticky wetness’ between her legs and a certainty she had been violated.

The world’s first super-model Janice Dickinson was the fourth on the stand. The prosecution’s star witness of sorts, Dickinson was also a risky choice given her infamous volatility.

She once stated that if she ever came face to face with Cosby – whom she accused of drugging and raping her in Lake Tahoe – she would demand, ‘How f*****g dare you?’ and punch him in the face.

But she proved a poised witness as she recounted being ‘jolted awake’ to find Cosby entering her after going to his room following a dinner at Lake Tahoe during which he had given her pills that he told her would help menstrual cramps.

She recalled thinking how ‘very, very wrong’ it was to have ‘America’s Dad’ on top of her. 

Maud Lotte Lublin, the fifth woman to take the stand, had no memory of any assault at all. 

But, 25 years on she told the jury that she had visited Cosby in his suite in the Las Vegas Hilton and lost consciousness after taking two shots of Amaretto he offered her to help her ‘relax’. 

Cosby, pictured with his spokespeople, twice said “good morning” as he entered the courthouse on Thursday morning

Cosby, pictured with his spokespeople, twice said ‘good morning’ as he entered the courthouse on Thursday morning

Cosby gave the deposition more than a decade ago as part of Ms Constand’s civil suit against him, which he settled in 2006 for nearly $3.4 million

Cosby gave the deposition more than a decade ago as part of Ms Constand’s civil suit against him, which he settled in 2006 for nearly $3.4 million

Cosby greets a man inside Montgomery County Courthouse on Thursday before jury deliberations started

Cosby greets a man inside Montgomery County Courthouse on Thursday before jury deliberations started

The prosecution hoped to show a sinister pattern of behavior with this parade of women. Steele spoke of ‘design’ and urged the jury to see that what happened to Constand ‘was no accident.’

Mesereau set out to destroy the credibility of Cosby’s accusers. 

The only discernible pattern he saw was that each woman was out for fame and money – specifically a chunk of the $100 million fund that women’s rights attorney Gloria Allred (who represents three of the accusers) has demanded Cosby establish for his alleged victims.

But before the jury had heard from any of the other women they had listened to forensic psychiatrist Dr Barbara Ziv.

She was there to dismantle our assumptions as to how a victim of sexual assault ‘should’ or does act. She referred to these largely erroneous beliefs as ‘rape myths’. 

The assumptions that a victim will flee, immediately report and then shun all contact with her assaulter are wrong, she told the jury.

Eighty-seven percent of victims know their abuser and just seven percent, or less, report the crime. The vast majority retain some sort of contact with their assailant in an attempt to ‘make sense’ of what happened.

In the post #MeToo culture the prosecution hoped that jurors would be more open to the idea that women may not report an assault until long after the fact.

They also did their best to head off the issues last years’ jury had with inconsistencies that peppered Constand’s accounts to law enforcement.

Before the jury settled into the reading Judge Steven T O'Neill announced that he was giving the alternate jurors an hour with Montgomery Court of Common Pleas' comfort dog - Turks, whose twitter page is pictured above

Before the jury settled into the reading Judge Steven T O’Neill announced that he was giving the alternate jurors an hour with Montgomery Court of Common Pleas’ comfort dog – Turks, whose twitter page is pictured above

Cosby accusers Lili Bernard and Caroline Heldman pose for a selfie while waiting in line before the courtroom opens at the Montgomery County Courthouse on Wednesday morning

Cosby accusers Lili Bernard and Caroline Heldman pose for a selfie while waiting in line before the courtroom opens at the Montgomery County Courthouse on Wednesday morning

Feden had Ziv explain this too and she duly said in 20 years of practice she had yet to encounter a woman who gave a coherent, chronological account of a sexual assault.

Yet in a he said/she said the truthfulness of an accuser’s claims is often judged on her ability – or inability – to give a clear and consistent account.

Knowing this, Mesereau honed in on what he presented as a particularly damning inconsistency.

In Constand’s account of the assault in January 2004 she made a point of saying that she arrived at Cosby’s home on an empty stomach. It was why she was reluctant to drink the wine he pushed on her, she said.

Yet when she made her first report to Cheltenham Township police she pinpointed the date as mid March. She said she had gone back to his house after a group dinner at a Chinese restaurant. She would have just had a ‘big Chinese meal’ Mesereau observed.

Challenged by him Constand said she’d just got ‘confused’ and that she was ‘nervous.’

Mesereau went onto mock the notion that she was oblivious to Cosby’s ‘romantic interest’ in her with relentless questioning about dinners alone with him at his home and one evening when she drove several hours to spend the evening with him at a casino in Connecticut.

She ended up in Cosby’s room post dinner – to get some baked goods she said. Mesereau scoffed at the idea and reminded the jury that she ended up ‘laying in bed with the defendant’. 

Last June, Constand had stridden into court, smiling and confident. This time her affect was very different.

Defense attorneys Kathleen Bliss (in red) and Tom Mesereau (second right), walk into Montgomery County Courthouse on Thursday

Defense attorneys Kathleen Bliss (in red) and Tom Mesereau (second right), walk into Montgomery County Courthouse on Thursday

Defense attorney Tom Mesereau, who was caught snoozing in court on Wednesday, walks through the courthouse on Thursday

Defense attorney Tom Mesereau, who was caught snoozing in court on Wednesday, walks through the courthouse on Thursday

She seemed diminished, thinner and older. Her hair was cut more closely. Her jaw was set more tightly. There was, she said, ‘no upside’ for her in this prosecution.

She had been ‘relieved’ to think that it was all over when, in 2006, she signed her $3.4million settlement in the civil suit she brought against Cosby.

When a Federal judge granted a request to have Cosby’s civil suit deposition unsealed in 2015 Montgomery County Detective Bureau chose to re-investigate the case they had set aside ten years earlier.

Steele took the unsealed deposition as new evidence, brought in just under the wire for Pennsylvania’s 12-year statute of limitations and the stage for this high profile trial was set.

Cosby did not testify in either trial but the court heard section of his deposition read aloud. In it he admitted to giving Quaaludes to young women with the intention of having sex with them.

And he gave his account of the night in January 2004 on which Constand claimed he drugged and assaulted her.

What Constand described as assault Cosby said was consensual. He told investigator that they engaged in ‘a petting and necking session’ during Constand had an orgasm.

And for all the billable hours expended, the witnesses called, experts recruited and millions of dollars thrown at this case by both sides this is what it all boiled down to: He Said/She Said – that simple, complicated, dynamic and whether or not that left room for belief beyond reasonable doubt. 

FIVE BILL COSBY RAPE ACCUSERS WHO HAVE TESTIFIED AT RETRIAL

Five women  who have accused Bill Cosby of sexual assault have testified at the comedian’s retrial. 

It was a big increase from the first trial, where there were just two women who took the stand – plaintiff Andrea Constand and Kelly Johnson.

This time Constand was joined by Janice Baker-Kinney, Janice Dickinson, Chelan lasha, Lisa-Lotte Lublin and Heidi Thomas.

Prosecutors had been hoping to have 13 women testify alongside Constand to speak to a pattern of behavior exhibited by the defendant.

Cosby, 80, has been accused of drugging and raping over 40 women.

Janice Baker-Kinney

Janice Baker-Kinney claims that in 1982 (left)  she woke up naked in bed with the comedian – and he told her to keep their encounter to themselves

JANICE BAKER-KINNEY

Kinney said she was 24 in May 1982 when she and a friend met Cosby at the casino where she worked in Reno, Nevada.

She said the three of them went back to Cosby’s apartment, where he gave her some pills.

Baker-Kinney willingly took two pills and said she began to get blurry vision while playing backgammon with Cosby. 

Hours later, she claims, she woke up naked in bed with the comedian – and he told her to keep their encounter to themselves.

‘I was mortified at what had happened,’ said Kinney back in 2015 when she went public with her allegations at a press conference. 

‘All this time, and for many, many years, I felt that this was my fault.’ 

The defense tried to deny Baker-Kinney’s admission as a witness by arguing that her story is ‘nothing like Ms. Constand’s’ because she only met Cosby once, ‘voluntarily’ took quaaludes and apologized for passing out.

Janice Dickinson in 1982

Janice Dickinson

Janice Dickinson (left in 1982) claims that Cosby sexually assaulted her in 1982 after giving her an unknown pill while they were in Lake Tahoe

JANICE DICKINSON 

The supermodel claims that Cosby sexually assaulted her in 1982 after giving her an unknown pill.   

Dickinson said in that 2014 interview that Cosby invited her to dinner to discuss a role on The Cosby Show and at one point offered her a glass of wine and a pill.

‘The next morning I woke up, and I wasn’t wearing my pajamas, and I remember before I passed out that I had been sexually assaulted by this man,’ she told Entertainment Tonight.

‘I remember waking up with my pajamas off and there was semen in between my legs.’

Dickinson said her last memory of the night was of Cosby taking off his robe and climbing on top of her, and that the next morning she remembers ‘a lot of pain.’ 

The supermodel claimed the incident occurred in Lake Tahoe, California in 1982.

In her memoir, Dickinson detailed some of her evening in Lake Tahoe with Cosby but told a very different story.

She said she was drinking with Cosby at dinner and after being invited back to his room told him she was tired, at which point he slammed his door in her face.

Legal claims made by Cosby and his team may be why she decided not to print her current version of the story.

She said back in 2014 that she came forward because she believes the other victims who have spoken publicly, and that it is the ‘right thing to do.’

As for what she would say to Cosby if she saw him, Dickinson did not mince words.

‘How dare you,’ she said.

‘Go f*ck yourself. How dare you take advantage of me. And I hope you rot.’ 

She is also currently preparing to face off with Cosby in a defamation lawsuit filed because of his response to her allegations.

Soon after that 2014 interview aired, Cosby’s attorney Marty Singer responded to requests for comment by disputing Dickinson’s claim that she was drugged and raped by his client and calling the allegation ‘an outrageous defamatory lie.’

A judge ruled in November that because he sent out that statement and a subsequent press release Singer will also face claims in the case.

‘We fail to see how justice is served by granting Singer a windfall immunity based on Cosby’s pursuit of a meritless motion,’ wrote California Second District Court of Appeals Associate Justice Laurence Rubin.

It was also ruled that Dickinson could recover all legal costs related to the appeal from Singer and Cosby. 

Chelan Lasha in 1986

Chelan Lasha (left in 1986) claims that Cosby attacked her when she was just 17 in 1986 when she was an aspiring model

CHELAN LASHA 

Lasha said in a 2014 press conference that Cosby attacked her when she was just 17 in 1986 when she was an aspiring model.

She said her stepmother had sent pictures of her to the star and he called her at home in Las Vegas, inviting her to the Hilton Las Vegas, where he was performing and she had a job.

She then went up to Elvis Presley suite to meet him and after telling him she had a cold, he gave her a blue pill, which he said was an antihistimine, with a double shot of Amaretto. 

She said: ‘He was rubbing my neck and saying that he might have to have someone come in and give me stress therapy.’

She claimed he told her to change into a Hilton bathrobe and wet her hair to see the modelling scout.

Someone did briefly come up to the room, pertaining to be from the Ford Modelling Agency -telling her to she needed to lose 10 pounds – and taking some pictures.

Then, Chelan said, Cosby walked her to the bedroom and gave her another shot of Amaretto, which he claimed would help her cold.

‘I laid down,’ she said: ‘He laid down next to me on the bed and began pinching my left nipple and humping my leg while he was grunting.

‘I could not open my eyes. I couldn’t move or say anything. I felt something warm on my legs. Then I blacked out.

‘Thirteen to sixteen hours later I woke up by hearing Mr Cosby clapping his hands and saying ‘Daddy says wake up’. He gave me $1500. He said the money was to buy something nice for me and my grandmother and he also invited me to go to the Temptations show with my grandmother.

‘My grandmother went but I did not go because I was too sick. Then he invited us to his show. My grandmother really want to go. I did not, but I went with her and heckled him. As a result, I was fired my from job.’

Lisa-Loote Lublin in 1989

Lisa-Loote Lublin

Lisa-Lotte Lublin (left in 1989) believes she was sexually assaulted by Cosby while passed out in his hotel in 1989

LISA-LOTTE LUBLIN 

Lublin said she met Cosby in 1989 at a hotel in Las Vegas and that he asked her to perform an improvisation so that he could evaluate her acting.

According to the ex-model, she and Cosby were in the Elvis Suite at the Hilton Hotel when he offered her two drinks and proceeded to pet her hair.

A short time later she passed out, but she remembered the color of the walls in the room and a flood of bright light she said in a 2015 press conference. 

She said that she believes she was sexually assaulted by Cosby while passed out in the hotel.

Prior to this, she and her mother had gone for a run with the comedian.

The defense argued that Lublin assumes she is a victim based on other media accounts but can only remember Cosby stroking her hair. 

Heidi Thomas in 1984

Heidi Thomas

Heidi Thomas (left in 1984) said she found herself in bed next to a naked Bill Cosby who was ‘forcing himself’ in her mouth back in 1984

HEIDI THOMAS 

In 1984, Heidi Thomas, nee Johnson, was a 24-year-old model from Denver, Colorado, who was dreaming of a career in acting.

Thomas was being represented by the city’s top modelling agency, JF Images, but by 1984 she was questioning whether or not she wanted to stay in the business.

Then one day in the spring of 1984, she got a call from an agent who told her that a famous entertainer was searching for young talent to mentor.

Thomas said that Annie Maloney, of JF Images, instructed her to travel to Reno, Nevada, where she was supposed to meet with Bill Cosby, who allegedly had expressed interest in becoming her acting coach.Cosby greeted Thomas at the entrance and ushered her inside, according to the woman.

The aspiring actress began by performing a monologue for Cosby, who then asked her to do a cold read of a person who was intoxicated.

Thomas said Cosby was not impressed because to his mind, she was not convincing as a drunk. 

She recalled that Cosby wanted her to relax, so he poured her a glass of Chablis.

The married music teacher said that her memory of the next several hours is very hazy, but when she woke up later that night, she found herself in bed next to a naked Bill Cosby who was ‘forcing himself’ in her mouth.

According to the woman, the married comedian then got on top of her and said to her: ‘I’m your friend… your friend is gonna [ejaculate] again,’ according to the 54-year-old mother of three.

Thomas said she was confused as to what happened and eventually stormed out of the room and slammed the door behind her, but she later apologized to Cosby for being rude.

She spent three more days with Cosby and said they were all hazy and a blur. 

The defense argued she has given three versions of her story. 



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