Jury begins deliberating in Cosby sex-assault case

NORRISTOWN, Pa. -- The jury in Bill Cosby's sexual assault case began deliberating Wednesday in the first big celebrity trial of the #MeToo era, weighing charges he drugged and molested a woman at his suburban Philadelphia home 14 years ago.

The seven men and five women got the case after receiving final instructions from the judge.

The two-week trial pitted Cosby, the 80-year-old former TV star once beloved as "America's Dad," against Andrea Constand, a former Temple University sports administrator who testified he knocked her out with three pills he called "your friends" and violated her at his suburban Philadelphia mansion in January 2004. He said their encounter was consensual.

Cosby faces three counts of aggravated indecent assault, each carrying up to 10 years in prison.

Twice by late afternoon, the jury had questions for the judge, asking him for the legal meaning of "consent" and requesting to see written statements from prosecution star witness Marguerite Jackson, a former Temple colleague of Constand's who testified Constand spoke of framing a prominent person for the money before she went to the police about Cosby.

Judge Steve O'Neill told the jurors they had already been given the definitions of the charges, and he said they would have to rely on their memory of Jackson's statements.

Deliberations got underway after a marathon day of closing arguments Tuesday portraying the comedian both as a calculating predator who is finally being brought to justice and as the victim of a multimillion-dollar frame-up by a "pathological liar."

"The time for the defendant to escape justice is over. It's finally time for the defendant to dine on the banquet of his own consequences," prosecutor Stewart Ryan told the jury.

Cosby's lawyers argued the charges were based on "flimsy, silly, ridiculous evidence."

The jury heard testimony from five other women who said Cosby drugged and violated them, too. Before excusing the jurors to deliberate, O'Neill told them they could consider the women's testimony as possible evidence Cosby had a pattern of predatory behavior, but he forbade them from using it to find the comedian is "a person of bad character."

Facing the prospect of a conviction and lengthy prison term, Cosby nevertheless seemed in good spirits Wednesday, giving a quick fist pump and sashaying toward well-wishers chanting, "We love Bill!" as he arrived at the courthouse.