Bill Cosby’s fate lies in the hands of 12 jurors who disappeared behind a courtroom door in this Philadelphia suburb late Monday to get a glimpse of Cosby’s true nature 79-year-old comedian.
The appropriated jury, which constitutes of seven men and five women, was expressionless during the testimony. However, a few were chuckling when they entered the courtroom on Monday afternoon to receive final instructions from Steven T. O’Neill, the presiding Montgomery County judge.
The jury will decide whether Cosby is guilty of three counts of aggravated indecent assault, each of which carries a possible 10-year sentence.
Defense attorney Brian McMonagle and Prosecutor Kevin Steele each sent the jurors off to deliberations with dilemmas to resolve. The prosecutor tried to get jurors to focus on Cosby’s admission that he gave pills to his alleged victim.
Steele pleaded with the jury to convict Cosby of drugging and sexually assaulting Constand in 2004 when she was 30. In response, McMonagle suggested to jurors that Cosby was the victim of a drumbeat of accusations by women who wanted to appear on television shows.
Camille Cosby, who is the entertainer’s wife for more than 50 years, slipped into the courtroom while the judge was addressing the audience and the attorneys. She heard her husband’s lawyer blame his legal woes on the supposed lies, greed and vanity of his accusers.
The criminal case focuses on the disputed contact between Cosby and Constand who is a former Temple University women’s basketball staffer.
Constad says that Cosby took advantage of his role as her mentor and slipped her pills that left her “frozen” and unable to stop him from touching her breasts and genitals. She filed a civil lawsuit that was settled in 2006 after Montgomery County prosecutors declined to file criminal charges against Cosby.
McMonagle, looking to raise doubts about her motives, reminded jurors that she contacted a lawyer who specializes in sexual assault lawsuits around the time she reported the alleged assault to police. The implication is that she was after money from Cosby, one of America’s wealthier stars.
