80-year-old comic actor, Bill Cosby has on Thursday being found guilty of three counts of aggravated indecent assault on Andrea Constand at his home in a Philadelphia suburb in 2004.
The 80-year-old comedian faces up to 10 years in prison on each count, but Cosby is likely to serve them concurrently. A sentencing hearing with Judge Steven O’Neill has not yet been scheduled, and Cosby remains out on bail.
Cosby did not audibly react to his conviction, but erupted shortly afterward. Minutes after the verdict, prosecutors asked the judge to revoke Cosby’s bail. They said he is a flight risk and has a private plane.
Cosby, who did not testify in the trial and has sat quietly through the proceedings, stood up and yelled in a booming voice: “He doesn’t have a plane, you a$$hole.”
Judge O’Neill ruled that Cosby should not leave his home. Since Cosby has homes in multiple states, the judge noted that if he does arrange with the appropriate offices to stay in a home in another state he must first be fitted with a GPS tracking device before leaving.
The verdict came a year after Cosby’s previous trial ended in a mistrial, as a different panel of jurors said they were deadlocked and could not unanimously agree on a verdict. This jury began deliberating Wednesday around 11 a.m., and worked for more than 14 hours over two days to reach the verdict.
At the retrial, five other Cosby accusers testified as “prior bad acts” witnesses and said that Cosby had drugged and assaulted them decades ago.
It was the first celebrity sexual assault trial since the #MeToo movement began last fall, and many saw it as a test of whether the cultural shift the movement has brought about would translate in court.
“What was revealed through this investigation was a man who had spent decades preying on women that he drugged and sexually assaulted, and a man who evaded this moment right here far too long,” Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele told reporters. “He used his celebrity, he used his wealth, he used his network of supporters to help him conceal his crimes.”
Cosby’s attorney, Tom Mesereau, said he plans to appeal “very strongly.”
“We are very disappointed by the verdict. We don’t think Mr. Cosby’s guilty of anything and the fight is not over,” he said.
