NORRISTOWN, Pa.(AP) – Bill Cosby is lashing out at prosecutors after a jury convicted him of three counts of aggravated indecent assault.
Cosby, 80, could end up spending his final years in prison after a jury concluded he sexually violated Temple University employee Andrea Constand at his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004. He claimed the encounter was consensual.
Cosby stared straight ahead as the verdict was read, but moments later lashed out loudly at District Attorney Kevin Steele and called him an “a–hole” after the prosecutor asked that Cosby be immediately jailed because he might flee. Cosby denied he has an airplane and shouted, “I’m sick of him!”
The judge ruled that Cosby will remain free pending sentencing.
Cosby was convicted Thursday of drugging and molesting a woman 14 years ago.
The 80-year-old entertainer stared straight ahead as the verdict was read. His chief accuser, Andrea Constand, remained stoic. Shrieks erupted in the courtroom and some of his other accusers whimpered and cried.
Judge Steven O’Neill told the panel of seven men and five women that it was “an extraordinarily difficult case.” He says the jurors “sacrificed in the service of justice.”
A lawyer for some of Bill Cosby’s accusers says “justice has been done” after the comedian’s conviction on sexual assault charges.
Gloria Allred represents three of the five additional accusers who testified that Cosby drugged and molested them. Cosby’s lawyers painted the women as home-wreckers and liars who made up their allegations in a bid for money and fame.
Allred spoke Thursday outside the suburban Philadelphia courthouse where Cosby was convicted. She says her clients are grateful to the jury for seeing past “his defense attorney’s lies.”
Cosby accuser Janice Baker-Kinney, who alleges he drugged and raped her in 1982, says in a statement she’s relieved “this toxic chain of silence has been broken” and says the women can move forward “with heads held high.”
