Bill Cosby retrial set to go to jury today

By Ray Kelly
MassLive
April 24, 2018

http://www.masslive.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2018/04/bill_cosby_jury.html

Bill Cosby departs after his sexual assault retrial, Monday, April 23, 2018, at the Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown, Penn. Photo by Matt Slocum

Bill Cosby's sexual assault retrial is slated to go to a Pennsylvania jury on today.

Jurors will be asked to weigh the prosecution's portrayal of the comedian as a sexual predator against the defense's contention that his accuser fabricated drugging and molestation allegations to score a big payday.

The defense rested on Monday after the 80-year-old comedian declined to testify, echoing his decision at his first trial, which ended in a hung jury last year.

"You now have all of the evidence," Judge Steven O'Neill told the 12 primary and six alternate jurors, according to ABC News. "Try to relax, so that you're on your game tomorrow."

Jurors at Cosby's first trial deliberated for five days without reaching a verdict on three related counts of aggravated indecent assault. Each carries a prison sentence of up to 10 years.

That trial hinged largely on Andrea Constand's testimony alleging that the TV icon drugged her with three pills and sexually assaulted her at his suburban Philadelphia mansion in 2004.

Cosby maintains he gave Costand a cold and allergy medicine to help her relax before what he called a consensual sexual encounter.

Cosby's new defense team, led by Michael Jackson lawyer Tom Mesereau, attempted to raise doubts about Constand's credibility.

Both juries also heard from Cosby himself, via a deposition he gave in 2005 and 2006 as part of Constand's civil suit against him. In it, Cosby acknowledged he gave the sedative quaaludes to women before sex in the 1970s.

Constand got a civil settlement of nearly $3.4 million from Cosby.