Embattled American icon Bill Cosby has lost a years-long legal battle that was made unbearable at retrial as the first celebrity trial of the #MeToo era, after been convicted of sexual assault by a US jury.
Bill Cosby was convicted on Thursday of drugging and molesting a onetime friend in 2004.
Constand was in the packed courtroom in Norristown, just outside Philadelphia, as the verdict was read out to stifled sobs in the gallery.
The Jury found him guilty on all three counts of aggravated indecent assault. Cosby’s first trial ended in June last year with a hung jury.
Cosby might be faced with up to 10 years in prison for each of three counts of aggravated indecent assault against Andrea Constand, 45, following a three-week trial at the Montgomery County courthouse in Norristown, Pennsylvania.
Cosby is confronted with three counts constituted penetration without Constand’s consent, which took place both while she was unconscious and after she had been drugged. Each count carries a maximum penalty of 10 years.
The prosecutor would have a sign of release, after Cosby’s first trial ended with the sequestered jurors hopelessly deadlocked after 52 hours of deliberations.
With little evident available, the trial essentially boiled down to hearsay how credible the jury found 45-year-old Constand, a former basketball player turned massage therapist.
Outside the courtroom, two other Cosby accusers were seen hugging, crying and clapping.
“It’s a victory not just for the 62 of us who have come forward but for all survivors of sexual assault, female and male,” one of Cosby alleged victim told reporters.
District Attorney Kevin Steele had asked the judge to have Cosby taken into custody immediately, saying he was a flight risk in part because he owned a plane. Cosby himself denied have a plane.
