NORRISTOWN, PA (RNN) – The jury has gone back to the courtroom Thursday in the sexual assault trial of Bill Cosby, and lawyers for the defense said a verdict has been reached.
A jury of seven men and five women deliberated for around 14 hours. It was the second day of deliberations in the famed comedian’s retrial.
Cosby’s defense team had rested its case Monday. Defense attorneys and prosecutors delivered their closing arguments Tuesday.
Cosby, 80, was charged with three counts of aggravated indecent assault. Each count carries up to 10 years in prison.
The charges stemmed from the allegations of Andrea Constand, a former Temple University women's basketball administrator who said Cosby drugged her with three pills and assaulted her at his home in January 2004.
Cosby has claimed he gave Constand 1.5 tablets of Benadryl to help her relax. He also said the sexual encounter was consensual.
The jury resumed deliberations Thursday by re-examining testimony from a defense witness who said Constand once talked about framing a prominent person for money.
Cosby’s first prosecution for sexual assault ended in a mistrial last year when jurors couldn't reach a verdict.
His retrial began April 9. In two weeks of testimony, jurors listened to Constand and five other women accusing Cosby of drugging and sexually assaulting them. Among the accusers was model and reality TV star Janice Dickinson, who testified that Cosby drugged and assaulted her in 1982.
Cosby didn’t take the stand in his retrial, just as he hadn’t in his first trial. Jurors, however, did hear depositions Cosby gave in 2005 and 2006 as part of a civil suit Constand filed against him. In the recordings, Cosby admitted he gave quaaludes to women before having sex with them in the 1970s.
Jurors also learned that Cosby had reached a settlement with Constand of $3.4 million.
The defense team pointed to the settlement as evidence that Constand was a con artist who fabricated her accusations for a big payday, in their attempt to counter prosecutors’ portrayal of Cosby as a serial predator,.
The defense and prosecution spent five and a half hours delivering their closing arguments Tuesday. The defense team continued its line of attack on Cosby's accusers, saying they fabricated their stories for money and fame. Defense attorney Tom Mesereau called Constand a "pathological liar."
Prosecutors hit back by calling Cosby a con artist, and telling the jury, "He is nothing like the image that he played on TV."
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