The sexual assault trial involving Bill Cosby is finally nearly underway, as Monday morning jury selection began at the Allegheny County Courthouse in Pittsburgh for the 2004 case in which the 79-year-old television patriarch is accused of drugging and raping former former Temple University women’s basketball team operations manager Andrea Constand. In the months leading up to the trial, there have been rumors of Cosby losing his vision (which seem to conveniently coincide with the charges against him) and on Monday morning he arrived at the courthouse wearing dark glasses, carrying a cane, and clutching onto the arm of one of his lawyers.
The trial itself is scheduled to begin on June 5 in Norristown, Pennsylvania, near where Cosby lives in Montgomery County, however his lawyers argued that it might be difficult to find impartial jurors on the area, and requested that the jury pool be drawn from Philadelphia or Pittsburgh.
The New York Times spoke with former prosecutor, Dennis McAndrews, a Pennsylvania lawyer who is not involved in the case but admitted that it should be easier to settle on a jury in Pittsburgh. “The fundamental question,” he said, is “can you set aside what you have heard or read and decide the case solely on the facts as presented to you in this courtroom?”
Should Cosby be convicted on the aggravated indecent assault charges against him, he faces up to 10 years in prison.
(Via AP, New York Times)