NORRISTOWN, Pa. — See you in three to 10 years, Pops.
Bill Cosby, once beloved as “America’s Dad” by millions of TV viewers, was slapped with the stiff prison sentence Tuesday for drugging and sexually assaulting one of his many accusers.
The 81-year-old former sitcom star, who won’t be eligible for parole for at least three years, chewed on a fingernail and looked up at the ceiling as Montgomery County Judge Steven O’Neill slammed him for drugging Andrea Constand at his home in suburban Philadelphia in 2004, then sexually abusing her when she was virtually unconscious.
“It was planned predation — the pills, the planning, the penetration without her consent — your own words in your deposition,” O’Neill seethed to Cosby. “You claimed her silence was her consent — that is not the law. Your version of consent was rejected by the jury. That underscores how serious this crime is.
“No one is above the law, and no one should be treated differently, or disproportionately, in terms of where they live, who they are, or in terms of wealth or philanthropy.”
Sitting with her family in the front row of the courtroom, Constand stared straight ahead as O’Neill spoke. She later emerged from the courtroom smiling.
“More than 60 other women have self-identified as sexual-assault victims of Bill Cosby,’’ Constand had said in a statement submitted to the judge. “We may never know the full extent of his double life as a sexual predator, but his decades-long reign of terror as a serial rapist is over.”
Cosby, who has refused to admit any wrongdoing, bizarrely burst out laughing and cracked jokes with his team just before he was taken into custody.
But the married dad of five, who claims to be legally blind and uses a cane to walk, didn’t find any humor in sheriff’s officers later stripping him of his tie, wallet and watch and cuffing him in front.
A grim-faced Cosby clutched his wooden cane in both hands as he was led out of the courtroom and down a corridor.
Neither his children nor his wife of 54 years, Camille, was there to see justice meted out.
A few hours later, Cosby was booked into the Montgomery County Correctional Facility in Eagleville, Pa., for his first stop in the system — and photographed in his mugshot looking as if he were about to cry.
Dinner at the prison Tuesday consisted of veal patty, pasta, gravy, mixed veggies, tomato salad — and, ironically for the once beloved Jell-O pitchman, pudding, according to reports.
After the evening meal, Cosby was shipped to his next stop, the State Correctional Institution Phoenix in Collegeville. After about 10 days, he’ll then be sent to a state lockup determined by the Department of Corrections.
O’Neill had refused to let Cosby remain free on $1 million bail pending his appeal, saying the infamous sex offender “could quite possibly be a danger to the community.”
Earlier in the day, O’Neill sided with the state in determining that Cosby was a “sexually violent predator,’’ a drastic designation. It includes mandated monthly counseling on top of him already having to register as a sex offender for life.
Cosby will have to serve three years in prison before he’s eligible for parole.
He is the first celebrity convicted on sex-assault charges in wake of the #MeToo movement that has engulfed some of the entertainment industry’s most powerful men, including Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, Matt Lauer, Morgan Freeman and Louis CK.
Once beloved for his warm portrayal of Brooklyn family man Dr. Cliff Huxtable on the TV hit “The Cosby Show” in the ’80s, he has spent his twilight years battling a torrent of sex-assault allegations that spanned decades.
Roughly 60 women came forward to say Cosby committed sex crimes against them, including rape, with some filing civil lawsuits because the statute of limitations on criminal charges in their cases had expired.
He nearly dodged any criminal prosecution altogether — but was finally charged in Constand’s case in December 2015, just before the 12-year statute of limitations on it ran out.
Prosecutors reopened the case after portions of his damning deposition in her 2005 civil suit were unsealed. In his statements, Cosby openly admitted to giving Quaaludes to young women before having sex with them.
Cosby, who did not address the court at sentencing, had faced anywhere from zero to 10 years for molesting Constand. He was convicted at a retrial in April after jurors in his first trial deadlocked.
O’Neill said the evidence against Cosby was bolstered by chilling testimony in the second trial from Constand and five other accusers — supermodel Janice Dickinson, Chelan Lasha, Janice Baker-Kinney, Lise-Lotte Lublin and Heidi Thomas.
“To hear voices from the past, your past, Mr. Cosby, saying, ‘This happened to me,’ six times — those voices said over and over and over again over time, and it was a valuable piece used by the jury in determining your guilt,’’ the judge said.
Cosby was 66 when he molested Constand, then 30 and a basketball administrator at Temple University, his alma mater. He earned her trust by offering career advice, she said.
Cosby oddly grunted, then nodded his head up and down, when O’Neill recalled Constand’s victim-impact statement.
“As she said, Mr. Cosby, you took her beautiful young healthy spirit and you crushed it,” O’Neill said.
In her five-page statement, which was not read out loud in court, Constand relived her guilt following the assault.
“I dreamed that another woman was being assaulted right in front of me and it was all my fault. In the dream, I was consumed with guilt and pretty soon, that agonizing feeling spilled over into my waking hours too,” she wrote.
“I became more and more anxious that what had happened to me was going to happen to someone else. I grew terrified that it might already be too late, that the sexual assaults were continuing because I didn’t speak out.”
Prosecutors requested that Cosby be put away for five to 10 years. Cosby’s lawyers had begged for house arrest or probation, citing his age and health.
Outside the courthouse, Cosby spokesman Andrew Wyatt compared him to Jesus — then quickly walked back his comments.
“They persecuted Jesus and look what happened,” Wyatt said. “Not saying Mr. Cosby is Jesus, but we know what this country has done to black men for centuries.”
But women’s rights lawyer Gloria Allred, who has repped many of Cosby’s accusers, said, “This has been a long journey to justice for all of [them].
Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele said: “And so finally, Bill Cosby has been unmasked, and we’ve seen the real man, who’s headed off to prison.”
