Famed comedian, actor and TV icon Bill Cosby has been recently convicted on three counts of aggravated indecent assault at his sexual-assault retrial Thursday, April 26th on the second day of deliberations. The verdict was met with mixed views: some say “finally” announcing victory against Cosby. Others view the verdict as a witch hunt against The Cosby Show star.
Back in June 2017, another jury at Cosby’s first trial deadlocked on that question after days of deliberations, forcing the Judge to declare a mistrial which made Cosby walk free. But in the retrial, the jury of seven men and five women voted unanimously against Cosby stating that he drugged and molested Andrea Constand at his nearby home in January 2004.
Cosby was charged with three counts of aggravated indecent assault and could get 10 years in prison on each count. He denied the charges, asserting that his sexual encounter with Constand was consensual and that he only gave her an over-the-counter allergy medication.
According to the Associated Press (AP) Bill Cosby admitted in a 2005 lawsuit that he got a sedative called quaaludes, with the intent of giving them to young women he wanted to have sex with, and that he gave the sedative to at least one woman and “other people,” according to documents obtained by AP.
Quaaludes are a central nervous system (CNS) depressant of the quinazolinone class that acts as a sedative and hypnotic. Also known as methaqualone, quaaludes peak in the bloodstream within several hours, with a half-life of 20–60 hours. Regular users build up a physical tolerance, requiring larger doses for the same effect. Overdose can lead to nervous system shutdown, coma and death.
Methaqualone became increasingly popular as a recreational drug in the late 1960s and early 1970s, known variously as ‘ludes or sopers (also soapers) in the U.S. and mandrakes and mandies in the UK, Australia and South Africa.
The drug was often used by people who went dancing at glam rock clubs in the early 1970s and at discos in the late 1970s. (One slang term for Quaalude was disco biscuits.) In the mid-1970s there were bars in Manhattan called juice bars that only served non-alcoholic drinks that catered to people who liked to dance on methaqualone.
Cosby settled that lawsuit in 2006 for $3.4 Million in obtained documents.
Cosby could appeal the current conviction, arguing that the jury was biased. But it may be difficult to find a jury that hasn’t heard of the disgraced comedian and already have formed their own opinions.
Cosby was charged in December 2015, just weeks before Pennsylvania’s unusually lengthy statute of limitations on sex crimes was about to expire. In the previous year, Cosby was accused by 60 women who said Cosby drugged and assaulted them in episodes dating back to the mid-1960s. Many of those accusations were too old to prosecute, except Constand.
After the first Cosby accusers began coming forward in October 2014, the Associated Press went to federal court…
…seeking that the deposition Cosby gave in the civil suit be released “in the public interest,” and they won.
The retrial was different: There were 13 days of testimony and arguments and a day and a half of deliberations, and there were more witnesses who testified. Prosecutors were allowed by O’Neill to call five other accusers of Cosby — “prior bad acts” witnesses — to testify that he did the same thing to them, too.
And Cosby was allowed to call a former friend and colleague of Constand, who testified that Constand spoke of a plan to frame a celebrity with false accusations so she could sue and make millions.
Much was made in the media and outside the courtroom about the fact the retrial took place in a dramatically different environment from last year — after the dawning of the Me Too movement that began in October 2017.
So what will happen next for at one time, “America’s Favorite Dad?” Only time will tell.
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