Cosby sentenced three to ten years

Eric Guditz
Copy Editor

Once known as “America’s Dad,” Bill Cosby is an entertainment icon whose career has spanned over five decades. On September 25th he appeared in a courthouse in Norristown, PA, and was sentenced to three to ten years in state prison for drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand in his home over a decade ago. He was ordered to pay a fine of 25 thousand dollars as well as the costs of the prosecution, to register for life as a “sexually violent predator,” receive lifetime mandatory sex offender counseling, and to notify his community that he is a “sexually violent predator.”
In 2004, Cosby gave Constand pills to incapacitate her and then sexually assaulted her. Constand was a Temple University employee at the time of the incident, and she says that she considered Cosby, a Temple trustee, as a mentor and a friend. He abused his own power and her trust to take advantage of her. “Bill Cosby took my beautiful, healthy young spirit and crushed it. He robbed me of my health and vitality, my open nature, and my trust in myself and others.”
Constand made police aware of the incident in 2005, however, prosecutors declined to press charges and instead settled the case in civil court a year later. A decade later, in 2014, several other women came out with the news that Cosby had done the same to them – he had drugged them and then sexually assaulted them. However, Constand’s claim was the only allegation within the statute of limitations, meaning that all of the other alleged victims’ legal proceedings had been nullified after a set time since the alleged crime. Cosby had been skirting allegations of sexual misconduct for years. Using statements made by both Cosby and Constand in a civil deposition, prosecutors were able to arrest Cosby in December 2015.
In April of this year, Cosby was convicted of three counts of aggravated indecent assault. Since then, he has stayed out of prison on one million dollar bail. Prior to his conviction, Judge O’Neill announced that the three counts of aggravated indecent assault would be counted as one because they all proceeded from the same event. Cosby’s defense attorney, Joseph P. Green, requested for a sentence of house arrest, alluding to Cosby’s progressing age and blindness. Upon his conviction, Cosby was denied bail and escorted from the courthouse in handcuffs. His attorneys plan to appeal his convictions.
Cosby’s spokesperson, Andrew Wyatt, described the prosecution as “the most racist and sexist trial in the history of the United States,” and that “[Cosby] knows that these are lies.” He even compared Cosby’s case to the sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
Gloria Allred, the victims’ rights attorney who represents several of Cosby’s victims, said, “We’re glad that judgement day has finally come for Mr. Cosby…Mr. Cosby has shown no remorse and there has been no justice for many of the accusers who were barred from a court by the arbitrary time limits imposed by the statutes of limitations.”
Montgomery County, PA Judge Steven O’Neill said, “this was a serious crime… Mr. Cosby, this has all circled back to you. The day has come. The time has come.” Acknowledging Cosby’s fall from grace, he added, “fallen angels suffer most.”

Eric Guditz, a sophomore, is undecided. He is a copy editor for Le Provocateur.