A judge declared Bill Cosby a “sexually violent predator” on Tuesday as he prepared to sentence the 81-year-old comedian for drugging and sexually assaulting a Canadian woman more than a decade ago.
The classification means that Cosby must undergo monthly counselling for the rest of his life and report quarterly to authorities. His name will appear on a sex-offender registry sent to neighbours, schools and victims.
Montgomery County Judge Steven O’Neill made the decision Tuesday as he weighed the punishment for Cosby for violating then-Temple University women’s basketball administrator Andrea Constand at his suburban Philadelphia estate in 2004.
Cosby declined the opportunity to address the court before the judge retreated to his chambers around noon to weigh the sentence. O’Neill said he would announce his decision early in the afternoon.
The comic once known as America’s Dad for his role as wise and understanding Dr. Cliff Huxtable on The Cosby Show in the 1980s faced anywhere from probation to 10 years in prison after being convicted in April in the first celebrity trial of the #MeToo era.
Prosecutors asked for five to 10 years in prison. The defence requested house arrest, saying Cosby is too old and helpless to do time behind bars. He is legally blind.
Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele rejected the notion that “age, infirmity, should somehow equate to mercy.”
“He was good at hiding this for a long time. Good at suppressing this for a long time. So it’s taken a long time to get there,” Steele said.
Cosby’s lawyers had fought the “sexually violent predator” designation, arguing that Pennsylvania’s sex offender law remains unconstitutional and that he is no threat to the public at his age. But O’Neill said prosecutors had met their burden of proof by “clear and convincing” evidence.
When the ruling came down, a woman in the courtroom shot her fist into the air and whispered, “Yessss!”
Meanwhile, Constand said in a statement submitted to the court and released Tuesday that she has had to cope with years of anxiety and self-doubt that have left her “stuck in a holding pattern.”
Constand returns to the courtroom during a break at the sentencing hearing on Monday. (David Maialetti/The Philadelphia Inquirer/Associated Press)
Constand, 45, said her training as a professional basketball player had led her to think she could handle anything, but “life as I knew it” ended on the night that Cosby knocked her out with pills and violated her.
Toronto-based Constand said she now lives alone with her two dogs and has trouble trusting people.
“When the sexual assault happened, I was a young woman brimming with confidence and looking forward to a future bright with possibilities,” she wrote in her five-page statement.
“Now, almost 15 years later, I’m a middle-aged woman who’s been stuck in a holding pattern for most of her adult life, unable to heal fully or to move forward.”
In the years since Constand first went to authorities in 2005, more than 60 women have accused Cosby of sexual misconduct, though none of those claims have led to criminal charges.
Protesters gathered outside the Montgomery County Courthouse on Monday, as Cosby faced the start of his sentencing hearing. (Jacqueline Larma/Associated Press)
The judge ruled on Cosby’s sex-offender status after a defence psychologist, Timothy Foley, testified that the chances of the comedian committing another sex offence are “extraordinarily low” because he is old, legally blind and needs help getting around.
On Monday, a psychologist for the state testified that Cosby appears to have a mental disorder that gives him an uncontrollable urge to assault women.
Cosby was smiling and joking with his spokesperson and sheriff’s deputies as he settled into the courtroom Tuesday. On Day 1 of the sentencing, the comic laughed at times as the psychologist for the state testified
Cameras were not allowed in the courtroom; they are generally banned in Pennsylvania.
The proceedings took place as another extraordinary #MeToo drama continued to unfold on Capitol Hill, where Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh faces allegations of sexual misconduct from more than three decades ago.
The AP does not typically identify people who say they are victims of sexual assault unless they come forward publicly, which Constand and other women have done.
Cosby became the first black actor to star in a prime-time TV show, I Spy, in 1965. He remained a Hollywood A-lister for much of the next half-century.