Bill Cosby Retrial, Day 11: Defense Rests; Closing Arguments to Begin Tuesday

By Jayme Deerwester
CBS 19
April 23, 2018

http://www.cbs19.tv/article/news/nation-now/bill-cosby-retrial-day-11-defense-rests-closing-arguments-to-begin-tuesday/465-2d6729b7-66ca-47a8-b632-855a339169fe

The defense in Bill Cosby's sexual-assault retrial rested its case Monday. With the two sides set to give closing arguments Tuesday morning, it's possible the jury could be deliberating by lunchtime.

“You now have all of the evidence,” Judge Steven O’Neill told jurors, sending them back to their hotel after an eleventh and abbreviated day of testimony. “Try to relax so that you’re on your game tomorrow.”

Cosby, who is accused of drugging and molesting Temple University athletic department staffer Andrea Constand at his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004, is charged with three counts of aggravated indecent assault. He says it was consensual.

As was the case in the first trial, Cosby opted not to take the stand in his own defense; that trial, ended in a mistrial after the jury failed to reach a verdict after five days of deliberation after just over a week of testimony.

If this jury votes to convict Cosby, the 80-year-old comedian could get up to 10 years in prison on each count.

The jury heard from 25 witnesses over 10 days of testimony. Constand herself testified, as did five other Cosby accusers, including model and reality TV star Janice Dickinson.

The defense team's star witness was Marguerite Jackson, a former Temple colleague who says that Constand had spoken of leveling false sexual assault accusations against a high-profile person for the purpose of filing a civil suit.

In 2006, Constand won a civil settlement of nearly $3.4 million from Cosby, a figure made public for the first time during the second trial.

The prosecution also read from the explosive 2005 deposition Cosby gave in that civil suit, in which he described their encounter in graphic detail and acknowledged giving women quaaludes, a now-banned sedative, before sex in the 1970s. However, he maintained that he gave Constand Benadryl, an over-the-counter allergy medication, to help her relax.

Before testimony came to an end Monday, the prosecution highlighted gaps in Cosby's private jeg logs, which the defense used to show that the comedian had not been in Philadelphia during January 2004, the time of the alleged assault. (Former Cosby secretary Roslyn Yarbrough also testified that he was spending most of his time at his properties in Massachusetts and New York and rarely stayed at the Philadelphia house.)

District Attorney Kevin Steele countered that the defense's records reflect only jet travel, not other modes of transportation. His team also pointed out 17 days that month in which Cosby wasn’t traveling, performing or taping TV appearances.

"You can’t tell us whether he got on a commercial flight,” Steele argued. “You can’t tell us whether he got on a train. You can’t tell us whether he got in a car and drove to Philadelphia.”

To further illustrate that the plane logs don't tell the whole story, Steele zeroed in on March 16, 2004, the date Constand said she confronted Cosby after a dinner he hosted at a Chinese restaurant for Philadelphia high school students. He noted Cosby's jet records don't show any flights to Philadelphia around that time, either.

The date of Cosby’s encounter with Constand is important because of when he was charged. Prosecutors reopened the case in 2015, and he was charged late that year – just before the 12-year statute of limitations was set to expire.

The defense maintains that any encounter with Constand at Cosby's home must have happened earlier, thus falling outside the statute of limitations.