Jurors at Bill Cosby’s sexual assault retrial are poised to start deliberating after a day of closing arguments that portrayed the comedian both as a calculating predator who’s finally being brought to justice and the victim of a multimillion-dollar frame-up by a “pathological liar,” the Associated Press reports. The seven men and five women sequestered at a suburban Philadelphia hotel will start weighing charges on Wednesday in the first big celebrity trial of the #MeToo era.
The prosecution and defense gave jurors lots to think about after a two-week trial pitting Cosby, the 80-year-old comedian once revered as “America’s Dad,” against Andrea Constand, a former Temple University sports administrator who testified that he knocked her out with three pills he called “your friends” and molested her at his suburban Philadelphia mansion in 2004. “The time for the defendant to escape justice is over. It’s finally time for the defendant to dine on the banquet of his own consequences,” said prosecutor Stewart Ryan.” Cosby’s lawyers argued that the charges were based on “flimsy, silly, ridiculous evidence.” In this trial, prosecutors had five other women testify that Cosby drugged and violated them. Cosby’s streamlined first trial ended in a hung jury last year after deliberations over six days. Cosby faces three counts of aggravated indecent assault, each carrying up to 10 years in prison.