Judge puts Bill Cosby away for 3 to 10 years

BOSTON (MA)
Boston Herald

September 26, 2018

By Sean Philip Cotter

Bill Cosby will spend up to a decade behind bars as the man who once was one of the great icons of American pop culture was legally designated as a “sexually violent predator.”

Judge Steven O’Neill sentenced the 81-year-old disgraced comedian to 3 to 10 years in prison for drugging and molesting Andrea Constand in 2004 at his Philadelphia estate.

“It is time for justice. Mr. Cosby, this has all circled back to you. The time has come,” O’Neill said during the hearing.

Over the past few years, upwards of 60 women have accused Cosby of sexual assault, turning the nation against one of its most widely beloved celebrities — a man who had been regarded as wholesome and was admired for one of the first portrayals of a well-to-do black family on TV.

“He was America’s dad on ‘The Cosby Show,’ ” Boston University communications professor Tobe Berkovitz told the Herald yesterday. “Now he represents betrayal — betrayal of what we thought was good in America.”

The sentence comes after a Pennsylvania jury in April convicted Cosby on three counts of aggra­vated indecent assault.

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