NORRISTOWN, Pa. _ Bill Cosby's lawyer on Monday described sexual assault allegations from dozens of other women and a worldwide media scandal as the real reasons that his client now sits in court facing charges that a decade ago a previous prosecutor had decided wouldn't hold up.
In an impassioned two-hour final pitch to jurors, defense lawyer Brian J. McMonagle painted the trial's central accuser, Andrea Constand, as a liar who badly damaged her credibility with conflicting statements to police when she first came forward in 2005.
McMonagle described his own client as a philandering husband, but an overly forthcoming one whose own statements about Constand have remained entirely consistent over 12 years _ no matter how damaging they have been to his reputation.
"We're not here for Andrea Constand. We're here for them and them," McMonagle said, his voice rising as he gesticulated toward rows filled with reporters and a few of Cosby's other accusers. "See this for what it is. Stop this!"
His argument came after the defense on Monday called just a single witness at the start of the second week of the trial. And it wasn't the defendant.
Sworn in briefly outside the presence of the jury, Cosby told Montgomery County Judge Steven T. O'Neill that he did not intend to testify. Instead, his team called one brief witness � Cheltenham police Sgt. Richard Schaffer, the lead investigator in the case who testified for the prosecution last week.
Cosby's wife, Camille, appeared in court for the first time Monday morning, entering and exiting on her husband's arm. Constand also attended the closing arguments, and showed little reaction as McMonagle attacked her credibility. Toward the end of his arguments, she placed her palms together in front of her face, as if praying.
McMonagle's impassioned plea began with an extended appeal to the jury's emotions, referencing everything from to the adoration with which children look at their parents and the honor of military service to concerns about the future of the nation and lofty paeans to the nobility of the jury's role in the American justice system.
Eventually, he referenced Cosby.
"I told you that when you looked over here, you'd see different things," he said. "A brilliant comedian, who not only taught us how to smile, but also taught us how to love each other. ... (But) someone who has been unfaithful."
But after that wind-up, McMonagle quickly moved on to hammer Constand's account, questioning why she told police at various points in 2005 that she had never been alone with Cosby prior to her alleged assault, that she never contacted him again after and that her assault had happened in March 2004 � all claims she would later revise before her testimony last week.
Constand gave "one inconsistent statement after another," McMonagle said. He emphasized Cosby's passes at her before the alleged assault _ which Constand had described as suggestive behavior but Cosby had told police were romantic and consensual encounters.
"Why aren't we just owning it?" McMonagle told the jury. "It's a relationship. They're intimate and they stay intimate and they are intimate. That's what it is. Why are we trying to make it something it's not?"
McMonagle also noted that after reviewing the same claim from Constand, former Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce L. Castor Jr. decided in 2005 not to seek charges against Cosby. Castor did not testify at the trial but has previously said he was unsure the case would hold up in court.
Cosby, 79, could receive a decade or more if convicted of aggravated indecent assault.
