The jury in the Bill Cosby sexual assault trial entered a fourth day of deliberations Thursday as jurors try to determine whether the actor sexually assaulted Andrea Constand in 2004.
In Norristown, Pa., the 79-year-old actor entered the courtroom for a ninth day as the jury weighed three counts of aggravated indecent assault against the actor, according to Reuters. Cosby is accused of drugging and sexually assaulting Constand — a Temple University employee — at his home in Philadelphia in 2004. (RELATED: Prosecutors Present Shattering Statements In First Day Of Cosby Trial)
Bill Cosby (Picture by: Ricky Fitchett/ZUMA/Splash News)
On Wednesday, the 12 member jury — made up of seven men and five women — asked to hear part of Constand’s testimony again about what she said happened that night at Cosby’s home in 2004. They also reviewed Cosby’s six-hour testimony he gave in his 2005 interview with police when he admitted giving Constand anti-allergy pills, but called what happened between them consensual.
On Tuesday, the jury asked the judge to reread comments Cosby made 10 years ago about his and Constand’s relationship and asked to look at testimony given in 2005 by a Canadian officer who took Constand’s original report. The group also requested a definition on the third count against the actor that deals with whether or not he gave her a substance “without [her] knowledge” for the main reason of “preventing resistance.” (RELATED: Clinton Campaign Worried About Bill Cosby Clinton Foundation Ties)
The trial started nine days ago and was followed by five days of testimony by the prosecution who rested their case on Friday and only six minutes of testimony by the defense Monday after Cosby decided not to take the stand before they rested their case.
Constand took the stand over two days and explained that the actor handed her three pills that he said were herbal in nature to help her relax before he allegedly sexually assaulted her. The pills, she claimed, made it impossible for her to “fight him away.”
“Mr. Cosby … laid me down. … I was laying on my left side and placed some pillow under my neck,” Constand explained. “I don’t really remember passing out. I have no recollection until at some point later I was jolted awake … and I felt Mr. Cosby’s hand groping my breasts under my shirt. I also felt his hand inside my vagina moving in and out. And I felt him take my hand and place it on his penis and move it back and forth.”
“I wanted it to stop,” she added. “In my head I was trying to get my hands to move or my legs to move but I was frozen and those messages didn’t get there. And I was very limp. And so I wasn’t able to fight him away.”
Cosby has pleaded not guilty to the charges. If convicted, he faces up to 10 years behind bars.
