NORRISTOWN, Pa. _ Bill Cosby should be locked up for as long as a decade and be required to register as a sex offender for the remainder of his life, prosecutors said Monday in the first day of a hearing that will determine how severely the disgraced and aging actor and comedian should be punished.
Cosby, 81, was convicted in April of three counts of aggravated indecent assault for drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand, a former university basketball official, at his mansion near Philadelphia in 2004. He could potentially face 30 years in prison.
Constand, 45, is the only woman among more than 50 accusers whose complaint against Cosby has led to a criminal conviction. But there was a long line of women Monday morning at Montgomery County's Court of Common Pleas in Norristown, many of the dozens who have accused Cosby of sexually assaulting them too.
Some of the women, who testified as "prior bad act" witnesses during the trial, hoped to persuade the judge presiding over the two-day sentencing hearing that Cosby is a serial predator and urge him to impose a substantial prison sentence.
"He should get some time behind bars," said Lise-Lotte Lublin, a 51-year-old schoolteacher from Las Vegas who has accused Cosby of drugging her, before the hearing began.
But before Judge Steven O'Neill imposes sentence, he must determine whether Cosby is a sexually violent predator, a label that would require him to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life and affect his freedom of movement in prison and beyond. Pennsylvania's sex-offender board has already examined Cosby and recommended he be classified as a sexually violent predator, but the judge has the final say.
Kristen Dudley, a psychologist who is a member of Pennsylvania's Sexual Offenders Assessment Board, testified Monday that after reviewing trial testimony and police reports, she believed Cosby met the criteria of a sexually violent predator who was likely to engage in future sexually predatory acts.
Cosby, she said, used his "power and prestige" to meet and befriend women, developing trust in order to drug and sexually assault them for his "sexual gratification."
Cosby's urges toward nonconsenting women constituted a mental disorder, she said.
Cosby's lawyer, Joseph P. Green, pushed back during cross examination, arguing that Cosby's age made him highly unlikely to reoffend.
"Did you consult any research on the likelihood of offending of a person who is in their 80s," he asked during a testy exchange.
"I did not," Dudley replied.
"How frequently would you expect the likelihood of reoffending in an 81-year-old person?" he said, persisting.
"I don't have a crystal ball, so I cannot predict with accuracy when a defendant is going to reoffend," she said dryly.
"Do you acknowledge that he is terminally blind?" he asked.
"Yes," Dudley said.
"How is he going to meet those people?"
"How do we know that his future victim has not been met? Dudley responded. "It is possible that he could meet someone. It is possible that he has already met someone."
Cosby faces three second-degree felony counts, which carry a penalty of up to 10 years. Prosecutors on Monday asked that Cosby be sentenced to five to 10 years in prison, fined $25,000 and ordered to pay the cost of his own prosecution.
Amid national scrutiny, the judge also has to decide whether to sentence Cosby to back-to-back prison terms or consider the three counts as a single criminal act.
The judge also has to consider how much weight to give to other women who have testified about Cosby's sexual misconduct _ he allowed five women to speak of Cosby's "prior bad acts" during the trial _ as well as Cosby's age and frail health.
Typically, someone convicted of aggravated sexual assault would be sentenced to significant prison time, said Dennis McAndrews, an attorney and former prosecutor from southeastern Pennsylvania.
"The difficulty is, this not a typical case," he said. "It's very rare that you see an 81-year-old man convicted of this type of offense. They're usually dramatically younger and often have a prior criminal history."
Attorneys for Cosby, who has insisted on his innocence, have said they plan to appeal his conviction.
While the defense is likely to argue for leniency, highlighting its client's age, frailty and lack of previous criminal convictions, prosecutors are expected to characterize Cosby as a serial predator who has long escaped justice.
Earlier this month, Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele asked the judge to allow numerous women who have accused Cosby of sexual assault to tell their stories at the sentencing. The judge denied prosecutors' request last week, stating he found no precedent in Pennsylvania law that would allow him to weigh uncharged conduct in his sentencing.
Lublin, who testified during the retrial that Cosby drugged her in a hotel room in 1989 when she was a 23-year-old model, traveled to the sentencing from Nevada in the hope she would be able to read a victim impact statement.
"I think he needs to hear it," she said of Cosby. "He needs to start taking responsibility for what he's done."
This week's sentencing is the final chapter in the lengthy legal back and forth that has marked Cosby's downfall from "America's Dad" to convicted felon.
For more than half a century, the iconic comic and actor presented himself as wholesome, fatherly and morally upstanding. On "The Cosby Show," one of the nation's most popular television sitcoms, which aired for eight seasons from 1984 until 1992, he played Dr. Heathcliff "Cliff" Huxtable, an affable upper-middle-class obstetrician and all-around good family man. The show was considered groundbreaking for its portrayal of a loving, upwardly mobile African-American family.
Constand, a former basketball official at Cosby's alma mater, Temple University, first reported an assault to police in 2005, but the Montgomery County district attorney at the time did not press charges. It was not until a decade later, when a series of women came forward, that the new district attorney, Kevin Steele, reopened the case _ just a few months before the statute of limitations was set to expire.
Last year, the first trial ended with a hung jury after six days of deliberation.
During the retrial in April, the judge allowed the prosecution to offer testimony from five other women, including the model Janice Dickinson, about "prior bad acts."
A jury of seven men and five women found Cosby guilty of assault with lack of consent, penetration while the victim was unconscious, and assault after impairing the victim with an intoxicant.
After posting $1 million bail, Cosby has spent the last five months confined to his home outside Philadelphia, fitted with a GPS monitor and limited to travel only to visit his attorneys or for medical reasons.
"My hope is he will be put in handcuffs and taken into custody immediately," said Gloria Allred, a feminist attorney who represents 33 of Cosby's accusers.
Allred said she had little sympathy for arguments for leniency based on Cosby's age and frail health.
"If he has to spend the rest of his life in prison, I'm not going to lose any sleep over it," she said. "I don't feel sorry for him at all. ... There's no special license for a celebrity to drug and assault women."
