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Cosby, who built a long career capped by the
1980s TV hit "The Cosby Show," became the first celebrity
convicted in the "#MeToo" era when a jury found him guilty of
drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand, a former
Temple University administrator, at his Philadelphia home in
2004.
Cosby's spokesman Andrew Wyatt said Cosby would appeal the
conviction in the State Supreme Court.
"Our personal battle against clear, racist, incestuous
vindictiveness, within the Pennsylvania criminal justice
systems, is not over," Camille Cosby, the entertainer's wife,
said in a statement.
Cosby almost avoided prosecution on the charges involving
Constand, which prosecutors brought on Dec. 30, 2016, days
before the statute of limitations was set to run out. Cosby's
first trial ended with a deadlocked jury, but he was found
guilty during a second 2018 trial when a judge allowed testimony
from five other women who also accused Cosby of drugging and
sexually assaulting them.
They were among some 50 women who accused Cosby, now 82, of
sexual assaults going back decades, though all the accusations
but Constand's were too old to prosecute.
He is serving a three- to 10-year prison sentence.
Cosby's second trial played out after the #MeToo movement had
exposed how widely women had been subjected to sexual harassment
and abuse across wide swaths of American life, in fields ranging
from entertainment to business to politics.
District Attorney Kevin Steele applauded the Superior Court
judicial panel's decision.
"It is my hope that with this last guaranteed step in the
criminal justice process now complete, the victim in this case,
Andrea Constand, can finally put this assault behind her and
move on with her life," Steele said in a statement.
Cosby's lawyers took issue with Montgomery County Judge Steven
O'Neill's decision to allow testimony from five other accusers'
whose claims were too old to lead to criminal charges.
Under Pennsylvania law, such "prior bad acts" witnesses are seen
as potentially prejudicial and allowed only under rare
exceptions, such as to prove a defendant engaged in a specific
pattern of behavior or could not have mistaken incapacitation
for consent.
Cosby's lawyers argued that the women's testimonies were too
dissimilar to amount to a pattern.
(Reporting by Gabriella Borter in New York; Editing by Scott
Malone and Leslie Adler)
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