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Bill Cosby Ordered To Court For Sexual Assault Charges, Could See 10 Years Behind Bars
Bill Cosby Ordered To Court For Sexual Assault Charges, Could See 10 Years Behind Bars

Bill Cosby Found Guilty On All Charges In Sexual Assault Trial

Lenny Kravitz, Grace Jones, Lauryn Hill, Lion Babe, Thundercat, SZA & More Rock The Afropunk Festival 2015 in Brooklyn, NY.

Bill Cosby has been convicted of drugging and raping a woman and could face a maximum sentence of up to 30 years in prison.

Bill Cosby was convicted on all counts Thursday of drugging and raping Temple University employee Andrea Constand at his Pennsylvania home in 2004. This has been the first big celebrity sexual assault trial of the #MeToo era.

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A jury of seven men and five women voted after about 14 hours of deliberation to convict the 80-year-old comedian on three counts of sexual assault after prosecutors called five additional accusers to the stand, Buzzfeedreports. The women testified that they were all drugged by Cosby. Four of them, including model Janice Dickinson, said they were also sexually assaulted.

Cosby could spend his last days alive behind bars if he's given the maximum sentence of 30 years in prison — a maximum sentence of 10 years and a fine of up to $25,000 on each of the three counts.

According to The Associated Press, Cosby lashed out at the prosecutor after the retrial. Cosby reportedly used an expletive to refer to District Attorney Kevin Steele, who was arguing to revoke his bail, and shouted “I’m sick of him!”

The judge ruled that Cosby will remain free pending sentencing.

In the past, Cosby has gone on record insisting the sexual contact with Constand was consensual, while his defense team called her a "pathological liar."

Lili Bernard, who alleges Cosby drugged and raped her in the 1990s, who attended the trial, told BuzzFeed News that a guilty verdict represents "a real shift in humanity, in rape culture."

"I know that it takes a tremendous force to convict a celebrity," she said, adding that she believes people have "wisening up to the fact that celebrities are just people with a lot of faults, and that a criminal can be disguised as beloved father figure, dad of all dads."

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More than 50 women have accused Cosby of drugging and sexually assaulting them over the span of decades. Constand’s allegation was the only criminal case to be brought to verdict, largely because most of the accusations were too old to prosecute.