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Despite heartfelt pleas in victims impact statements and sharp words from lawyers on both sides today, Bill Cosby will see in the inside of a prison cell for the 2004 rape of Andrea Constand for less than three years, the judge in the criminal case against the much accused entertainer told a Pennsylvania courtroom.
“All I am asking for is justice as the court sees it,” a confident Constand said Monday in a very short stint on the stand, looking directly at Judge Steven ONeill. Referring the court and the nearby Cosby to her extensively detailed testimony in both the 2017 mistrial and the retrial this spring, the former Temple University employee was followed by her mother, who was also a witness in the two trials.
Back in April, the currently under house arrest and out on $1 million bail Cosby was found guilty on three counts of aggravated indecent assault by a jury in a retrial. With each count carrying a maximum sentence of 10 years, the 81-year old actor could have been hit with a three-decade slot behind bars.
No matter what the Constand family wants, the lawyers arguments on both sides and what this weeks sentencing hearing unveils, with Cosbys inevitable appeal looming, that 30-year lockup just isnt going to happen.
On Day 1 of the sentencing hearing for Cosby and a vital defense witness still to come on Tuesday, Judge ONeill revealed that the often clashing Montgomery County District Attorneys office and the defendants lawyer had agreed to a deal of sorts.
“Counts two and three have been merged into Count one,” ONeill said on Monday afternoon in Norristown, PA. Looking at the state guidelines and their wiggle room, the suburban Philadelphia based judge declared that once A-lister Cosby was looking at a total jail time of 22 to 34 months as a sentencing stretch.
The District Attorneys office said that while that were part of the deal melding the counts, they sought to go to “the high end.” That would translate into 10 years in prison for Cosby, a $25,000 fine, court costs and a psychosexual evaluation – unlikely from what ONeill said earlier.
Explaining his thinking in this now #MeToo and Times Up era, a tempered ONeil told the court that he had examined the pre-sentence investigation, sentencing guidelines and victims impact statements, commonwealth and defense sentencing memo with letters from doctors and other notables in the latter.
In a sometimes shaky voice before the packed courtroom, the elder Constand afterwards emotionally described, “the drugging and sexual assault my daughter endured in 2004 by Bill Cosby” as a erosive horror in her life, only equaled by the death of her father. “I deal with my trauma on a daily basis,” Andrea Constands mother added of the toxic and destructive effect the jarring event of 14 years ago and the legal, psychological and physical fallout preyed on her family by Cosby even with the civil case settlement of $3.8 million around 2006.
Andrew Constand, who said he was the “proudest man in the world” because of his daughter Andrea, then took the stand to deliver his own victims impact statement. The near Toronto based older Constand detailed the “sadness” that hangs “like a dark cloud” over himself and his family to this day. In a near completely silent courtroom as Cosby looked on, Andreas father took a moment in the relatively short statement to thank those who have supported and “believed” his daughter.
“The impact of this event will never go away,” Constands sister added on the stand herself of Andrea being “drugged and sexually assaulted” and the attacks in the media and by Cosbys defense lawyers.
Of course, with a suddenly delayed defense witness in the matter of the states recommendation that Cosby be designated a sexually violent predator, those victims statements have a limited scope beyond emotion. Also ONeill has stated that he believes he cannot rule on a sentence until the designation of the SVP label is resolved, which pushes everything until tomorrow morning at the earliest when Dr. Timothy Foley appears to be available to discuss the states recommendation of registering Cosby as a sexually violent predator.
In the meantime, with no indication that Cosby will be saying anything himself, the defense and the prosecution presented their very different closing arguments for the delayed sentencing.
“Public opinion can swallow whole the rule of law,” defense leader Joseph Green said in a measured tone summarizing the bulk of the revolving door of attorneys long held argument that Cosby is being somewhat stitched up for indiscretions. “In a high profile case where there are lots of advocates, there can be challenges,” the local lawyer added, emphasizing Cosbys poor beginnings and battles against discrimination in his climb to success.
In many ways the same as arguments that previous Cosbys lawyers have made in past trials performances, this was the relatively recently hired Greens first swing at that bat. “Eighty-one year old blind men are not dangerous,” he softly stressed, seeking to swat away the SVP designation and gain continued house arrest or similar sentencing, in fact if not name, for his client.
Returning again and again to the “court of public opinion,” Green also tried to talk away a personal attack that a “frustrated” Cosby made verbally towards D.A. Kevin Steele over the case, a jab that was remarked upon in the prosecutions sentencing filings.
Tellingly, the defense lawyer did not mention the defenses repeated and so far failed attempts to get ONeill to take himself off the case. Nor did Green note in his public opinion rhetoric how the absent Camille Cosby filed a “misconduct” compliant with the states Judicial Board against ONeill and put out a flurry of press releases earlier this month.
“He seemingly doesnt think he has done anything wrong,” D.A. Steele said today in his own remarks of Cosby, who was no more than 20 feet away the whole time. “No remorse,” the increasingly worked up elected lawyer bluntly stated with his voice rising. “We know who this guy is, certainly not the act he played on TV,” Steele added of the man once commonly called “Americas Dad.”
Dismissing any notion that the actors age and health should exempt him for state prison, the D.A. slammed the “victim shaming” that he said Cosbys various lawyers and representatives aimed for in and out of court. “Nobodys above the law,” Steele concluded waving the banner of deterrence.
In the past few years, more than 60 women have come forward to claim that Cosby drugged and/or assaulted them over the past five decades in very similar circumstances to what Constand described in her case. There are a number of civil cases ongoing, but because Pennsylvania has a much longer statute of limitations on sex crimes than most states, Cosby was able be pulled into court on criminal charges in late 2015 just before time ran out on the Constand case.
Despite admitting in depositions more than a decade ago to giving Benadryl pills to Constand on the night of the apparent assault in his Philadelphia-area mansion over a decade ago, Cosby has unsuccessfully insisted through various investigations and two trials that the encounter with the ex-Temple University basketball team employee was consensual.
Cosby, Constand, the lawyers, and Judge ONeill are all expected back in court at 9 AM ET tomorrow for a SVP determination and final sentencing – if all goes to plan.
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