Posted on 09/25/2018 11:21:21 AM PDT by billorites
NORRISTOWN, Pa. (CBS/AP) Bill Cosby learned his fate inside a Montgomery County courtroom on Tuesday. The 81-year-old actor and comedian has been sentenced to no less than three years in state prison for sexually assaulting a former Temple University employee at his home in 2004.
Judge Steven ONeill handed down a sentence of no less than three years and no more than 10 behind bars.
ONeill also ruled Cosby as a sexually violent predator. The classification means that Cosby must undergo lifetime counseling and report quarterly to authorities. His name will appear on a sex-offender registry sent to neighbors, schools and victims.
Cosbys lawyer argued for bail after the ruling, but ONeill pushed back, saying he will not treat Cosby any differently under the law.
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Cosbys lawyers had fought the sexually violent predator designation, arguing that Pennsylvanias sex-offender law is unconstitutional and that he is no threat to the public at his age. But ONeill said prosecutors had met their burden of proof by clear and convincing evidence.
Cosby was found guilty in April on three counts of aggravated indecent assault. Jurors convicted Cosby of sexually assaulting Andrea Constand without consent, while she was impaired and after incapacitating her.
Each count carried a sentence up to 10 years in prison. State guidelines suggested a one to four-year sentence. Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele asked the judge to sentence Cosby to five to 10 years in prison.
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More than 60 other women accused Cosby of sexual misconduct during his 50-year show business career. ONeill allowed five of them to testify at trial, while others came to watch the court proceedings. Steele wanted some of them to speak at the sentencing, but ONeill ruled out the testimony of most of the other accusers, other than the five trial witnesses.
Days before the sentencing, Cosbys lawyers wanted ONeill to step down from the case because of what Cosbys team called a long-ago grudge with a pretrial witness. Last week, Cosbys wife, Camille Cosby, filed a state ethics complaint this week accusing ONeill of bias against her husband because of what she called his feud with a former prosecutor who testified in an early 2016 pretrial hearing. ONeill had competed against the witness, Bruce Castor, for a political post years ago.
Bill Cosby had been on house arrest since the verdict.
Constand said in a statement submitted to the court and released Tuesday that she has had to cope with years of anxiety and self-doubt that have left her stuck in a holding pattern.
Constand, 45, said her training as a professional basketball player had led her to think she could handle anything, but life as I knew it ended on the night that Cosby knocked her out with pills and violated her.
Constand said she now lives alone with her two dogs and has trouble trusting people.
When the sexual assault happened, I was a young woman brimming with confidence and looking forward to a future bright with possibilities, she wrote in her five-page statement.
Now, almost 15 years later, Im a middle-aged woman whos been stuck in a holding pattern for most of her adult life, unable to heal fully or to move forward.
She also wrote: We may never know the full extent of his double life as a sexual predator but his decades-long reign of terror as a serial rapist is over.
Tuesdays sentencing was a reckoning accusers and prosecutors said was decades in the making.
The victims cannot be un-raped. Unfortunately, all we can do is hold the perpetrator accountable, said Gianna Constand, the victims mother, who testified Monday that her daughters buoyant personality was forever changed after the attack.
The hearing concluded Tuesday after testimony from a defense psychologist who says Cosby is no longer a danger, given his age, and should not be branded a sexually violent predator. On Monday, Kristen Dudley, a psychologist for the state of Pennsylvania, testified that Cosby fits the criteria for a sexually violent predator, showing signs of a mental disorder that involves an uncontrollable urge to have nonconsensual sex with young women.
Steele said Cosby would no doubt commit similar crimes if given the chance, warning that the former TV star seemingly gets a sexual thrill out of slipping women drugs and assaulting them.
To say that hes too old to do that to say that he should get a pass, because its taken this long to catch up to what hes done? Steele said, his voice rising. What theyre asking for is a get out of jail free card.
Cosby, he said, has shown repeatedly that he feels no remorse over his actions. And he said the sentence should send a message.
Despite bullying tactics, despite PR teams and other folks trying to change the optics, as one lawyer for the defense put it, the bottom line is that nobodys above the law. Nobody, the district attorney said.
Cosbys side didnt call any character witnesses, and his wife of 54 years, Camille, was not in court.
Cosby became the first black actor to star in a prime-time TV show, I Spy, in 1965. He remained a Hollywood A-lister for much of the next half-century.
The proceedings took place as another extraordinary #MeToo drama continued to unfold on Capitol Hill, where Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh faces allegations of sexual misconduct from more than three decades ago.
He’ll die in prison.
BC should be in a cell right next door.
May he endure in prison exactly what he’s done to these girls.
he still has time when he isa release to run for the senate as a democrat.
“The proceedings took place as another extraordinary #MeToo drama continued to unfold on Capitol Hill, where Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh faces allegations of sexual misconduct from more than three decades ago.”
FU, CBS! They HAD to slip that in there! @#$%^&*!
Kind of ironic? how the whole time the left is accusing the right of sexual assault...it’s mostly dims that are going to jail for it.
+1.
English is hard for this writer or Cosby is now bisexual.
Sentencing guidelines...3 to 10.
Cosby can finally stop pretending he’s too frail to walk unassisted, if nothing else.
Don’t drop the pudding.
Hell be reunited with Fat Albert in jail.
He’ll have to be in isolation. He’ll get whacked otherwise; definitely extorted. He’s so screwed.
I knew the media would try and equate the two.
Hey hey hey!
Hell be reunited with Fat Albert in jail.
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Lol.
And Fat Albert is fatter and now has a very nasty attitude.
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