Bill Cosby was found guilty of sexual assault by a jury of his peers on Thursday.
After less than two days of deliberation, the jury reached a verdict at 1:30 p.m. and determined Cosby was guilty on three counts of felony aggravated indecent assault.Breakthrough product sheds fat and builds muscle fast. See it for yourself!
Cosby was charged with three counts that each carry a standard sentence range of five to 10 years in prison, but legal experts say the sentence for each count should run concurrently under Pennsylvania law since they all cover the same incident and conduct. That means the 80-year-old is likely facing up to 10 years behind bars.
Cosby will also have to register as a sex offender and face an assessment to determine if he is a sexually violent predator.
The once-celebrated TV icon was found guilty of violating Andrea Constand at his suburban Philadelphia home in January 2004.
Cosby's new legal team, which was headed by famed Michael Jackson attorney Tom Mesereau, failed to prove Constand was "greedy" and wanted to extort money out of Cosby. Cosby's chief accuser explained in court that she was simply at the trial "for justice."
Constand, 45, gave virtually the same account when she testified at Cosby’s first trial, which ended in a mistrial on June 17, 2017, after the jury deliberated for more than 52 hours over six days and still couldn’t reach a verdict.
She testified that Cosby slipped her three blue pills he called “your friends.” She said she thought they were herbal supplements designed to help relieve her stress, but they knocked her out. When she awoke, she said, Cosby was violating her.
Cosby maintained he gave Constand the cold medicine Benadryl and that she consented to a sexual encounter. In a two-hour, tag-team closing argument, Cosby's lawyers, Mesereau and Kathleen Bliss, painted Constand as a “pathological liar” scheming for a big payday.
Prosecutor Stewart Ryan urged the jurors to stand with Constand and look Cosby in the eye and “tell him the truth about what he did.”
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