PHILADELPHIA _ A man who says he was one of six alternate jurors in Bill Cosby's sexual assault trial told a Pittsburgh radio station Monday he would have voted to convict the 79-year-old entertainer whose case ended in a mistrial last week.
Mike McCloskey, 43, told radio station WDVE-FM that he and the other alternates were kept secluded from the seven men and five women that deliberated for five days last week until declaring itself hopelessly deadlocked.
Asked if he knew what prevented jurors from reaching consensus on the three counts of aggravated assault Cosby faced, McCloskey said the panel members did not discuss it on the ride from the courthouse back to the hotel where they were sequestered Saturday afternoon. "It was complete silence," he said. "It was the craziest, eeriest bus ride I've ever taken."
The most compelling piece of evidence for him, he told the radio station, was a phone conversation secretly recorded by the mother of Cosby's central accuser, Andrea Constand, in 2005 and played for jurors in court.
In that call, Cosby apologized to Constand's mother, Gianna, and described in graphic detail the sexual acts that occurred the night Constand claims the entertainer drugged and attacked her. Cosby maintained throughout that the liaison was consensual and that Constand appeared to enjoy it.
"It was ridiculously creepy," McCloskey said.
McCloskey's status as an alternate juror could not immediately be confirmed, and he did not immediately return calls for comment Monday.
Montgomery County Judge Steven T. O'Neill has kept the identities of the panel members sealed since they were selected in Allegheny County and bused to Norristown for trial.
However, McCloskey posted a photo of what appears to be his juror badge from Montgomery County on Saturday with the message: "For all the doubters out there ... there is the tag I wore every day in court."
Prosecutors say they intend to retry Cosby within the coming months.
