Rocio Mateos
On Monday, Bill Cosby will finally have his day in court. The comedian will show up at a Pennsylvania courtroom to respond on three counts of aggravated indecent assault for allegedly sexually assaulting a woman 13 years ago.
The accuser is Andrea Constand, a former employee of Temple University’s women’s basketball program. Constand alleges that the assault took place in 2004 at Cosby’s home outside Philadelphia. Where she arranged to meet the comedian for what she thought would be a discussion about her career.
Aside from Constand, over 60 other women have accused Cosby of similar crimes, including rape, drug-facilitated sexual assault, among others. However, the trial is only for Constand’s deposition. Cosby has pleaded not guilty to three counts, but he could be facing a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison for each one of them.
After 12 years, the case will finally have a closure
Constand filed a civil suit in January 2005 – a year after the alleged crime took place. In 2006, the case was settled out of court for an undisclosed sum, and a confidentiality agreement was signed.
However, in 2015, Constand and her attorney Dolores Troiani filed a motion to negate the settlement, claiming that Cosby had engaged in “total abandonment of the confidentiality portions of the agreement,” according to some reports. Cosby had been outspoken about the case in order to deny the allegations against him after they went viral, thanks to comedian Hannibal Buress, who alluded Cosby’s accusations as part of a comedy routine back in October 2014.
The suit was then resumed and after some time preparing the trial, Constand’s case will finally reach the courtroom on June 5 in Montgomery County. The jury is formed by 12 people, consisting of four white women, six white men, one black woman, and one black man.
Cosby’s legal team played hard to make the jury as favorable to Cosby as possible. First, they got to trade the Montgomery County jury for members all from Pittsburg, arguing that a Montgomery County jury would be influenced by the local publicity surrounding the trial.
Also, during the selection process, the team argued that prosecutors were “systematically excluding” black jurors. Including black jurors could mean more sympathy towards Cosby, as he’s a beloved black celebrity.
Cosby won’t be testifying in at the trial
A couple of weeks ago, the 79-year-old comedian – who had remained silent about the case for almost two years. Recently appeared to say he’s blind and revealing that he would not attend the trial to testify. Cosby will leave everything in the hands of his legal team. In previous statements, Cosby has denied Constand’s accusations.
The 44-year-old Canadian massage therapist described that when she went to Cosby’s home back in 2004, he offered her three pills to “take the edge off.” Afterward, Constand says she became dizzy and was unable to move her body, while Cosby was already getting his hands inside her underwear.
She woke up at 4 a.m. next morning, got up and made her way to the door, where Cosby was standing wearing a burgundy V-neck robe, showing her the exit. How cynic is that?
Constand says that she left his house traumatized, quit her job, went back to her parents home in Toronto. Suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, Constand was haunted by nightmares and would scream in her sleep. A year later, she finally told her mother about the attack, who turned to take legal actions against Cosby.
Cosby’s defense? The sexual contact was consensual, and he walked her out of his house. The depositions uncovered by the New York Times read: “She does not look angry. She does not say to me, ‘Don’t ever do that again.’ She doesn’t walk out with an attitude or a huff because I think that I’m a pretty decent reader of people and their emotions in these romantic sexual things, whatever you want to call them.”
We’ll see how that argument turns out to court.
