Bill Cosby Convicted on Three Counts of Sexual Assault

By Manuel Roig-Franzia
Washington Post
April 26, 2018

https://www.washingtonpost.com/?utm_term=.37a4b92bb1e1

Iconic entertainer Bill Cosby was convicted on three counts of sexual assault, a decision that punctuates one of the most thundering falls from grace in American cultural history. Cosby faces a maximum of 10 years for each count of assault. No sentencing date has been set. The conviction comes in a retrial of a 2017 case in which a mistrial was declared.

As the foreperson of the jury, a slender woman with long graying hair and glasses, said those three words — guilty, guilty, guilty — the courtroom rocked with emotion. Two women who have accused Cosby of sexual assault but did not testify at the trial, burst out in loud sobs from their seats in one of the back rows of the cramped and tension-filed courtroom.

They were escorted from the courtroom by security officials. But their tears — tears of joy, sadness and exhaustion after a frustrating years-long struggle — still filtered into the courtroom through the heavy closed wooden doors. Their tears became the soundtrack for the next few moments of courtroom drama, an off-stage symphony of relief, release and pain.