Bill Cosby’s 2005 admission that he drugged women to have sex with them was the most compelling piece of evidence leading a Pennsylvania jury to finding him guilty of sexual assault, one of the jurors told ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Monday.
That admission, which the actor made when he was facing a civil lawsuit, had also been a key piece of evidence for prosecutors in Cosby’s first trial on the charges, which ended last year with that jury unable to reach a verdict.
“It was his deposition,” Harrison Snyder, 22, told ABC. “Mr. Cosby admitted to giving these Quaaludes to women, young women, in order to have sex with them.”
The 80-year-old entertainer, best known as the iconic father from the 1980’S TV hit “The Cosby Show,” faces up to 30 years in prison when he is sentenced in the next three months for drugging and raping Andrea Constand, 45, in 2004 at his home in a Philadelphia suburb.
The seven-man, five-woman jury that included Snyder reached a unanimous decision on Thursday after 12 hours of deliberations, about 10 months after the previous jury deadlocked in his first trial on the same charges, prompting the judge to declare a mistrial.
In the deposition from the 2005 civil lawsuit filed by Constand, Cosby described giving drugs, including the sedative Quaaludes, and alcohol to women before sex, hosting Constand at his home and a slew of other acts.
Prosecutors presented new witnesses at Cosby’s most recent trial that the judge had blocked them from calling in 2017, including five other women who accused him of drugging and assaulting them.
Snyder told ABC that he had been unfamiliar with Cosby and the #MeToo movement against sexual assault and harassment before the trial because he does not watch the news and that he was not initially sure that Cosby was guilty. He was convinced after hearing the evidence.
“If you were there, you would say the same thing. You would say that he’s guilty,” Snyder said. “I have no doubt at all.”
Cosby is planning to appeal the verdict, which could potentially delay his imprisonment for months or even years.
Source: Reuters
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