US comedian Bill Cosby has been found guilty of three counts of sexual assault, each of which carries a potential 10 years in prison.<\/p>\n
The actor, 80, has been on trial for drugging and assaulting ex-basketball player Andrea Constand in 2004.<\/p>\n
Cosby, the first major black actor on primetime TV, will remain out of jail until he is sentenced, the judge ruled.<\/p>\n
He unleashed an expletive-filled rant after the verdict, as prosecutors argued he should be denied bail.<\/p>\n
It was the second time the actor had stood trial for the allegations, after an earlier jury failed to reach a verdict in June 2017.<\/p>\n
At the start of the retrial in Pennsylvania it was revealed that Cosby had paid Ms Constand almost $3.4m (\u00a32.4m) in a civil settlement in 2006.<\/p>\n
Cosby is best known for starring in the 1980s TV series The Cosby Show.<\/p>\n
Around 60 women over five decades have publicly accused the Emmy award-winning actor of being a sexual predator. But statute of limitation laws mean that only one charge has been brought to trial.<\/p>\n
Some of his accusers were present in court, and cried as the guilty verdict was returned.<\/p>\n
Cosby’s lawyer insisted “the fight is not over”, adding that he believes Cosby is innocent.<\/p>\n
When the attack took place, Ms Constand was working as director of operations for the women’s basketball team at Temple University, Philadelphia.<\/p>\n
She told the court she had gone to the home of her then friend Cosby, to discuss her resignation.<\/p>\n
She said he had given her three blue pills to “help take the edge off,” which she believed to be a natural remedy.<\/p>\n
Minutes later, she was suffering double vision and quickly lost consciousness.<\/p>\n
She awoke to find Cosby groping her breasts and penetrating her, she said, adding that the drugs made her physically unable to fight back.<\/p>\n
Ms Constant reported the attack, but the district attorney refused to press charges. The case was reopened in 2015.<\/p>\n
Judge Steven O’Neill allowed five of Cosby’s other accusers to serve as “prior bad acts” witnesses during the trial, as the prosecution sought to establish a pattern of misconduct.<\/p>\n
Former US model Janice Dickinson was among those who testified<\/a>, alleging that Cosby drugged and raped her at a hotel in 1982, when she was 27 years old.<\/p>\n “I wanted to hit him, wanted to punch him in the face,” Ms Dickinson, 63, told the courtroom in Norristown, Pennsylvania. “I felt anger, was humiliated, disgusted, ashamed.”<\/p>\n The former reality television star testified Mr Cosby offered her a blue pill that he said would help with discomfort from menstrual cramps.<\/p>\n “He smelled like cigars and espresso and his body odour,” she said. “I couldn’t move, I felt like I was rendered motionless.<\/p>\n “Here was America’s dad on top of me, happily married man with five children and how very, very wrong it was,” she said.<\/p>\n The case against Cosby was one of the first celebrity assault trials conducted in the light of the #MeToo movement, which has raised awareness of alleged sexual misconduct by a number of powerful media figures.<\/p>\n Source: bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"