Bill Cosby Has Been Sentenced To 3-10 Years In Prison And Declared A ‘Sexually Violent Predator’ By A Judge

Disgraced comedian and actor Bill Cosby was previously found guilty on all charges during his April sexual assault retrial in Pennsylvania. Those three charges would include aggravated indecent assault, specifically regarding the case of Andrea Constand, the Temple University employee who accused Cosby of drugging and sexually assaulting her in 2004. The retrial was hailed as a victory for the #MeToo movement, but given that the trial’s outcome indicated that Cosby could be sentenced to a more than a decade in prison, some might be disappointed in the actual sentence that was handed to “America’s Dad.”

Judge Steven O’Neill has declared that Cosby will serve anywhere between 3-10 years in prison. This determination arrived after O’Neill labeled Cosby as a “sexually violent predator,” a declaration that lands him on the sex offender’s registry and will require him to undergo counseling for life. The Hollywood Reporter reports official word on the sentence, which was received well by at least one person in the courtroom:

Bill Cosby has been sentenced to three to 10 years in state prison for drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand at his estate near Philadelphia in 2004. He has been sentenced to “total confinement,” a judge ruled on Tuesday … When the ruling came down, a woman in courtroom shot her fist into the air and whispered, “Yessss!”

On Monday, O’Neill has warned the courtroom that he thought it was unlikely that Cosby would receive three years or more, despite the charges making it possible for him to serve a full 30 years in prison. This outcome was based upon the merging of two of Cosby’s counts due to a deal between the Montgomery County district attorney and his defense, combined with his lack of prior criminal history and “wiggle room” within state guidelines. The DA still pushed for a 5-10 year sentence, while the defense requested house arrest, and the sentence appears to have landed solidly in middle ground.

Still, this retrial has led to a substantially different outcome than the June 2017 mistrial that followed two days of jury deliberations based largely upon Cosby’s previous $3.3 million settlement with Constand and his 2005 deposition admission to drugging and sexually assaulting Constand and other women. To date, at least 60 women have lodged startlingly similar accusations against the former TV juggernaut, but for now, justice has been served, and ABC’s Evan McMurray posted a video of Cosby in cuffs.

This CNN clip shows Cosby’s publicist, Andrew Wyatt, reading a statement from his phone (after comparing Cosby to Jesus) that calls Cosby and Brett Kavanaugh victims of “a sex war” that’s “going on in Washington today.”

(Via Hollywood Reporter, Deadline, USA Today & NOLA.com)