Jan. 01--On Thursday, the New York Daily News ran one of the most provocative, effective front pages we saw all year:
"AFTER 55+ ACCUSATIONS, COSBY FINALLY BUSTED / HE SAID-SHE SAID she said, she said, she said, she said, she said ..." The words flowed down the tabloid page, "she said" printed 56 times.
The criminal charges of aggravated indecent assault against Bill Cosby this week in Philadelphia brought, well, not finality. That will have to wait on a trial or a plea agreement.
At that, Montgomery County prosecutors have their work cut out for them. The alleged assault happened 12 years ago. The alleged victim, Andrea Constand, provided a statement to prosecutors a year later, but prosecutors then declined to pursue the case.
Constand, former director of operations for the Temple University women's basketball team, alleges that Cosby assaulted her in his Philadelphia-area home in early 2004. She had sought his career advice and become a frequent visitor. Cosby allegedly incapacitated her with a drug, then molested her.
It is, indeed, largely he said-she said. In this case, though, there may be a twist on the "he said."
Prosecutors contend that Cosby admitted in a phone call with the alleged victim's mother that he had given the young woman some kind of medication and had had sexual contact with her. He later told investigators he gave her over-the-counter Benadryl. Cosby, in the course of settling a civil case brought against him, gave a damning deposition in which he talked about giving quaaludes to young women he wanted to have sex with. That deposition became public just last year.
In the deposition, Cosby gave a chilling account of what happened in 2004, describing it as a consensual sexual encounter based on Constand's silent acquiescence. "I don't hear her say anything. And I don't feel her say anything. And so I continue and I go into the area that is somewhere between permission and rejection. I am not stopped," Cosby said.
The announcement of a prosecution starts to resolve one of the bewildering questions about the Cosby cases: How could so many women have similar experiences with a public figure without some resolution of whether crimes were committed?
The irony of Bill Cosby has been evident for months: a beloved father figure, a public moralist, accused again and again and again of being a sexual predator, of taking advantage of his public standing for years.
He spoke out against violence, against saggy pants, against indecency. That's all over -- his image is destroyed.
The question now is simply whether defendant William Henry Cosby is convicted in Pennsylvania of aggravated indecent assault.
