It’s more than just a now. Bill Cosby will be tried on sexual assault charges.
A Pennsylvania judge ruled on Tuesday that prosecutors had sufficient evidence to bring Cosby to trial in the lone criminal case brought against him out of the barrage of allegations that he drugged and molested dozens of women.
No immediate trial date was set, the AP reported. Cosby, 78, could get 10 years in prison if convicted.
The accuser in the case is Andrea Constand, a former Temple University employee who said Cosby violated her at his suburban Philadelphia mansion in 2004. Prosecutors reopened the case last year after dozens of women leveled similar allegations.
Just a year and a half ago, plans were underway for a Netflix Cosby comedy special and an NBC Cosby sitcom. Both were scrapped in the wake of allegations of sexual assault against the former “Cosby Show” star.
The fact that the case has taken this long to work its way to a trial has something to do with the image Cosby set for himself and maintained for decades as the trusted family entertainer, honored African-American educator, scolding elder who reprimanded rude children, Emmy-winning actor, noted producer and all-around beloved comedian. The country’s collective denial in this matter has to be recognized. His media enablers (including those of us who didn’t push the topic in the presence of network executives), his and others all played a part in helping people look the other way.
It took a two-minute to begin the public unraveling process. Mocking Cosby’s “Teflon” persona and his disapproval of young black men wearing sagging pants, Buress said: “Yeah, but you rape women, Bill Cosby. So turn the crazy down a couple notches.”
Buress raised the rape allegations during a comedy skit. Not coincidentally, it required a male (in this case, another black man), to move the years of whispers and rumors about Cosby’s actions into the realm of credible accusations.
So begins the next chapter in the life of the formerly trusted TV patriarch.
