A juror who voted to convict Bill Cosby of sexual assault said the comic’s own words did him in — and that he has no doubts he and other jurors reached the right verdict, according to a new report.
Harrison Snyder, who was juror No. 1, said Cosby’s deposition from 2005 and 2006 in which he admitted giving Quaaludes to women he wanted to sleep with was the damning evidence that ultimately convinced the jury he was guilty.
“I think it was his deposition, really. Mr. Cosby admitted to giving these Quaaludes to women, young women, in order to have sex with them,” Snyder told ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Monday.
The 22-year-old said he started off deliberations not knowing whether Cosby was guilty.
He made up his mind, however, after “hearing everyone’s comments about certain pieces of evidence and going through the different counts,” he said.
Cosby was convicted last week of three counts of sexual assault. Each count carries a 10-year prison sentence.
Snyder also said he believed testimony from Cosby’s chief accuser, Andrea Constand, who recalled for jurors in graphic detail how the now-80-year-old comic gave her pills that made her pass out and how she woke up to him sexually assaulting her at his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004.
Five other accusers who took the stand, even though Cosby was not criminally charged with attacking them, were also credible, Snyder said. But he would’ve convicted Cosby without their testimony.
“If you hadn’t heard from the other five, and you just had her word, would that have mattered to you?” asked ABC News reporter Linsey Davis.
“I don’t think so because in the deposition, he stated that he gave these drugs to other women,” Snyder replied. “I don’t think it really necessarily mattered that these other five women were here. Because he said it himself that he used these drugs on other women.”
“So you found it to be his words that were the most damning of all?” Davis asked.
“Yeah,” Snyder answered.
The same Cosby deposition was played for jurors at his first trial last year, which ended in a hung jury following more than 50 hours of deliberations. In that trial, the judge only allowed testimony from one other accuser.
Snyder said the inconsistencies in Constand’s story about details surrounding the sexual assault — a crux of the defense’s case — was cleared up by prosecutors’ first witness, Dr. Barbara Ziv.
Ziv testified that victims of sexual assault likely won’t have a clear or chronological recollection of events — especially if an intoxicant is administered.
“Some have said that I made the right decision, and some people have said that they still think that he’s innocent,” said Snyder. “And I just tell them, if you were there, you would say the same thing, you would say that he’s guilty.”
The juror said that, prior to being selected, he only knew that Cosby was an actor — and had never heard about the allegations that he drugged and molested some 60 women.
“I really didn’t know a lot. I knew he was an actor. I knew that he did ‘The Cosby Show.’ I never watched ‘The Cosby Show.’ I’m a little too young for that,” Snyder said. “I didn’t know anything. I don’t watch the news ever. So I didn’t even know what he was on trial for.”
He said the #MeToo movement wasn’t a factor in his decision.
“I really only found out about it after I got home. Then I looked online to see what everything was. I didn’t really even know about the #MeToo movement,” Snyder said.