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September 25, 2018
Bill Cosby gets 3 to 10 years of state imprisonment with no bail pending appeal
As reported in this USA Today article, headlined "Bill Cosby sentenced to three to 10 years in state prison, remanded to custody immediately," a high-profile sentencing ended in a high-profile defendant going directly to prison. Here are some of the details:
A handcuffed Bill Cosby was immediately taken into custody Tuesday after a Montgomery County judge sentenced him to three to 10 years in state prison for the sexual assault of Andrea Constand.
“It is time for justice. Mr. Cosby, this has all circled back to you. The time has come,” Judge Steven O’Neill told the convicted sex offender, denying his request for bail pending appeal and ordering him into immediate custody. He quoted from Constand’s statement to the court, in which she said Cosby took her "beautiful, young spirit and crushed it.”
After the sentencing, Cosby removed his jacket, tie and watch before being taken away in handcuffs, an officer holding his arm. He did not respond to a reporter's request for comment.
Cosby publicist Andrew Wyatt issued a fiery retort outside the courthouse, saying Cosby was denied a fair trial and calling the proceeding "the most racist and sexist trial in the history of the United States." He cast blame on District Attorney Kevin Steele; a "racist and sexist mass media"; and three white female psychologists "who make money off of accusing black men of being sexual predators."...
Before announcing Cosby's prison term, O'Neill ruled that he would be designated a "sexually violent predator," requiring that he register as a sex offender and undergo counseling for the rest of his life after his release from prison. Cosby was fined $25,000 and ordered to pay court costs.
The sentence is in line with the one sought by Steele, who asked O’Neill to impose a prison term of five to 10 years after Cosby's conviction in April on charges he drugged and sexually assaulted Constand in 2004. A defense attorney had asked that Cosby, 81, be spared a prison term, citing his age and frailty....
Cosby’s lawyers asked that he be allowed to remain free on bail, but the judge appeared incredulous over the request and said he would not treat the celebrity any differently from others.
At a post-trial news conference, Steele said justice had finally been served, calling the sentence "fair and significant."
“It’s been a long time coming, but (justice) arrived when a convicted felon named William H. Cosby Jr. left the courtroom in handcuffs, headed off to state prison for his crimes," he said. "It’s been a long wait for our victim, Andrea Constand, as it has for the other women who have endured similar sexual assaults and rapes at the hands of the defendant.”
He said Cosby's fame, fortune and popularity helped him create a deceptive image. “For decades, the defendant has been able to hide his true self and hide his crimes using his fame and fortune. He’s hidden behind a character, Dr. Cliff Huxtable (of "The Cosby Show"). It was a seminal character on TV and so was the family, but it was fiction," Steele said. "Now, finally, Bill Cosby has been unmasked, and we have seen the real man as he is headed off to prison."
Prior related posts:
- You be the state judge: what sentence for Bill Cosby for conviction on three counts of aggravated indecent assault?
- "Why Bill Cosby may not spend any time in prison"
- "Are Elderly Criminals Punished Differently Than Younger Offenders?"
- "Will Bill Cosby’s Trip From America’s Dad to Sex Offender End in Prison?"
September 25, 2018 at 06:32 PM | Permalink
Comments
It would be awesome if Cosby would use some of his cash to put hits on many people who support the Registries and have them murdered. That is the direction the "$EX offender" witch hunt needs to go. America needs to keep devolving asap.
Posted by: FRegistryTerrorists | Sep 25, 2018 9:38:19 PM
Will Cosby be able to use his name and resources to strengthen the prisoner strikes that have been spreading to several prisons nationwide ? Yes, he did a terrible crime and has to be punished for it, but the legal system's racism and sexism needs to be actively opposed.
Posted by: william r. delzell | Sep 26, 2018 9:23:00 AM
william r. delzell (Sep 26, 2018 9:23:00 AM): I would not assume that Cosby "did a terrible crime" unless I researched it very carefully and came to that conclusion myself. We all know how juries convict innocent people all the time. And how so, so many people who supposedly care about justice actually don't care about it at all as long as they are getting their jollies convicting people.
Posted by: FRegistryTerrorists | Sep 26, 2018 12:08:14 PM
They just had an interview on DEMOCRACY NOW! where they interviewed the plaintiffs, several of whom were black. One of the black plaintiffs against Cosby denied that racism had anything to do with his conviction as a greater disproportion of his victims were black. She explained how the rape adversely affected her life and finances. She was not your typical right-wing white woman like Phyllis Schlafly or Linda Fairstein, which made her testimony more credible than many's.
I do agree with you about Megan's Law as that is a post-punishment measure that supposedly is not punitive even though it is. If he was on parole before his sentence expired, that would be one thing to make him register, but once his sentence expires, then one should not have to register. It does not protect the victims and ties the polices' hands who could be doing other things.
Posted by: william r. delzell | Sep 26, 2018 2:33:13 PM
william r. delzell (Sep 26, 2018 2:33:13 PM):
"Plaintiffs"? No matter, I got your point. I haven't followed the case at all. I don't have enough time to invest in it to even really get a somewhat valid, informed opinion. That won't stop most other people from having an opinion of course, but that's not me.
The thing that kills a victims credibility for me is when they later file a civil lawsuit and go after money. If I don't know anything about a case then I really, really, really start to wonder. It would be great if a victim would think, say, and do, "I got you put in prison, which you rightly deserve, and I don't want a damn other thing from you." But I'm not going to say how people should react. I would probably sue someone just to harm them. But I also really do think though that far, far too many people want to blame all of their life problems on something, anything, other than themselves. So they will think an abuser owes them something beyond prison.
Lastly, the Registries don't protect anyone. But they really harm all of America and pretty much everyone in it. So it doesn't matter if a person is on parole or probation - no one should be listed on a Registry. And after probation or parole, forget about it. No decent American can support that.
But I will say that law enforcement personnel who are talented, knowledgeable, and good, know that the Registries are a waste of time and resources. So they don't waste much time on them. They have some clerks taking all of the information and all that but that is about it. The more time that someone wastes on the Registries, the more that you know that they are incompetent.
Posted by: FRegistryTerrorists | Sep 26, 2018 6:32:53 PM
This conviction and sentence is a travesty. Was not the main accuser in a long term relationship with Cosby? Was he not promised that if he gave a deposition on another matter that it would never be used in any other matter?
What happened to that evidence? What happened to those promises?
In other words, what happened to Justice in America?
Evidently,if you were sexual then you are stripped of every single tenet of English/American Jurisprudence immediately.
These tyrants and imbeciles who are doing this? Reap the whirlwind.
Posted by: restless94110 | Sep 26, 2018 7:35:19 PM
I feel the need to clarify my statement of, "So they will think an abuser owes them something beyond prison." An abuser probably does owe their victim more than just a prison sentence. I didn't mean that. I meant that I think in most cases that it is BS to a large degree when a person says they were $EXUALLY abused as a child and that destroyed their whole life. Usually, the person themselves destroyed their whole life and they want to blame it on something else. Not saying that it doesn't negatively affect people. I was a child victim.
Only thing I was really trying to say is that if I don't know about a case then I really start to wonder about the motives the SECOND that someone starts going after money. We know people are terrible enough to commit $EX crimes. Everyone SHOULD know that people are terrible enough to falsely accuse someone of $EX crimes only so they can get money. Everyone should know that. Especially people sitting on juries.
Posted by: FRegistryTerrorists | Sep 27, 2018 9:20:59 AM
