ELKINS PARK, Pa. — Comedian Bill Cosby, once “America’s favorite dad,” hobbled into a Pennsylvania courthouse on Wednesday to face criminal charges of drugging and sexually assaulting a woman in his home.
The formerly beloved “Fat Albert” creator, 78, had already seen his reputation and career all but destroyed by the accusations of 55 women who have claimed that he drugged and sexually abused them.
But Wednesday’s arrest marked the first time he has been slapped with criminal charges.
“The evidence is strong and sufficient to proceed,” Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele said of the charges, which came two weeks before Pennsylvania’s 12-year statute of limitations was about to run out. “We made this determination because it was the right thing to do.”
Cosby faces three counts of aggravated indecent assault for the 2004 alleged attack on Andrea Constand, a Temple University employee who is 37 years his junior.
Constand said she trusted the then-revered comedian, actor and civil-rights activist as a mentor, according to a criminal complaint.
Cosby — who has been married to wife Camille for 51 years — stands accused of plying Constand with drugs and wine then sexually assaulting her as she was drifting in and out of consciousness inside his Cheltenham Township, Pa., house.
Clutching a cane, a frail-looking Cosby arrived for his arraignment at a Montgomery County district court in a black SUV at around 2:30 p.m. and stumbled briefly as he was led arm-in-arm by two lawyers.
At the end of the proceeding, Magistrate Judge Elizabeth McHugh told him: “Good luck to you, sir.” Cosby shouted back, “Thank you.”
If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in prison and a $25,000 fine.
Constand told authorities in 2005 that Cosby made sexual advances twice after they met through her job at Temple University — but she rebuffed him.
The first time, they were sitting on a couch at his home when, “without warning, Cosby reached over and touched her pants, her waist and her inner thigh,” she claims.
The second time, she had consumed a couple of glasses of wine before the former Jell-O spokesman — who reached his biggest fame in the 1980s playing Dr. Cliff Huxtable on “The Cosby Show” — suddenly unbuttoned her pants and started stroking her, Constand alleges.
She claims that she showed up at about 8:45 p.m. and told Cosby that she felt “drained” and “emotionally occupied,” the complaint says.
He then brought down three blue pills from upstairs, telling Constand they would help her relax, the court document states.
“[T]hese will make you feel good. The blue things will take the edge off,” he said, telling her they were herbal pills.
“Put ’em down. Put them in your mouth,” Cosby explained, according to the complaint.
After telling her to sip on some water, he told her to “taste the wine,” Constand told police. She was worried about drinking wine on an empty stomach, but Cosby still insisted that she “just taste the wine,” the complaint says.
Constand obliged, and about 20 to 30 minutes later, her vision became blurry and her legs felt “like jelly,” she claims.
Feeling “frozen” and “paralyzed,” Constand said she was going in and out of consciousness when Cosby started “fondling her breasts, put his hands into her pants and penetrated her vagina with his fingers,” according to the complaint.
“Cosby also took the victim’s right hand and placed it onto his erect penis,” the document states.
She woke up at around 4 a.m., noticing her sweater was bunched up and her bra had been unhooked.
Prosecutors said there are probably other women who were similarly drugged and violated by Cosby. Steele, the DA, urged them to come forward.
Cosby’s attorney, Monique Pressley, said, “Make no mistake: We intend to mount a vigorous defense against this unjustified charge, and we expect that Mr. Cosby will be exonerated by a court of law.”
Constand, now 42, lives in Toronto and works as a massage therapist. Her attorney, Dolores Troiani, welcomed the charges.
“She feels that they believe her, and to any victim, that is foremost in your mind: Are people going to believe me?” Troiani said.
Constand first came forward in 2005 — but the then-DA declined to charge Cosby. During that investigation, Cosby insisted he’d had a consensual encounter with Constand and had given her just three halved Benadryl pills, “three friends to make [her] relax.”
Asked if he’d had intercourse with her, he offered a strange response: “Never asleep or awake,” the complaint says.
Constand filed a civil lawsuit, which was settled in 2006 under a nondisclosure agreement.
Cosby also faces a raft of defamation and sexual-abuse suits in Massachusetts, LA and Pennsylvania. But in nearly every one of those cases, it is too late to file criminal charges.
With wire services