PENNSYLVANIA
Associated Press
By MICHAEL R. SISAK
April 24, 2018
NORRISTOWN, Pa. (AP) — The jury in Bill Cosby’s sexual-assault retrial will begin deliberating Wednesday after a searing day of closing arguments in which the comedian was variously portrayed as a calculating predator who is finally being brought to justice, or the victim of a multimillion-dollar frame-up by a “pathological liar.”
The judge sent the seven men and five women back to their hotel Tuesday evening after the jurors indicated they were exhausted from listening to 5½ hours of arguments.
“I want you well rested. I think you have collectively made a wise decision,” Judge Steven O’Neill said.
The first big celebrity trial of the #MeToo era pits Cosby, the 80-year-old former TV star whose career and good-guy reputation were destroyed by a barrage of allegations involving drugs and sex, against Andrea Constand, a former Temple University women’s basketball administrator who testified that he drugged and sexually violated her at his suburban Philadelphia mansion 14 years ago.
Five other women got on the witness stand and testified the same thing had happened to them.
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