About 20 minutes later, the judge returned and said bail was not appropriate. Sheriff’s deputies escorted Cosby out of the courtroom as he clutched a wooden cane with both hands.
Looking straight ahead, Cosby walked down a hallway and disappeared behind doors — the final stages of a monthslong journey to state prison.
“Mr Cosby, any comments sir?” a reporter asked.
He did not say a word.
‘The day has come’
During the sentencing, Cosby sat motionless in a courtroom packed with about 200 people.
A man who once rubbed elbows with some of Hollywood’s biggest names only had attorneys and publicists with him in the courtroom. His wife, Camille, who’d stood by him throughout both trials, was nowhere to be seen. Neither were his children.
“This was a serious crime,” said O’Neill, a judge in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. “Mr. Cosby, this has all circled back to you. The day has come, the time has come.”
Accuser’s statement was crucial
Glancing toward Constand and her family, the judge said her impact statement was crucial in determining the sentence. Constand’s attorney put her arm around her shoulder as the judge handed down the sentence.
Cosby remained expressionless when the judge read the sentence, and did not address the court during the sentencing hearing. “I do not need any more discussion on that,” he responded to a question on whether he’d say something. When O’Neill asked him if he understood that decision, Cosby answered, “yes.”
O’Neill said he would not hold it against Cosby that he didn’t speak or testify.
Judge revoked Cosby’s bail
After the sentence, the defense blurted out a request for bail during the appeal process, citing a problem with the audio recording of phone calls recorded by Constand.
As part of the sentence, the judge also ordered him to pay a fine of $25,000 plus the costs of prosecution. Cosby was booked into Montgomery County Correctional Facility and transferred to Pennsylvania’s State Correctional Institute at Phoenix on Tuesday evening.
Though his three charges each carry a maximum possible sentence of 10 years, O’Neill said they were merged into one because they’re from the same incident.
Cosby had remained out of prison for the past five months on $1 million bail, and his lawyers said they plan to appeal his convictions.
From father figure to convicted sex offender
Cosby gave Constand pills to incapacitate her and then sexually assaulted her in 2004. She told police about the incident in 2005, but prosecutors declined to press charges. They settled the case in civil court a year later.
A decade later, dozens of women came forward to say Cosby drugged and sexually assaulted them over his decades as a powerful actor and comedian.
Constand’s case was the only one that was within the statute of limitations. A new team of prosecutors took up the case based on Constand’s and Cosby’s statements in a civil deposition, and arrested him in December 2015.
Victims react to sentence
“Bill Cosby took my beautiful, healthy young spirit and crushed it. He robbed me of my health and vitality, my open nature and my trust in myself and others,” she wrote in the impact statement.
O’Neill cited Constand’s statement as a big part of his decision to sentence Cosby to prison time.
CNN’s Eric Levenson and Jean Casarez contributed to this report.
Source : Nbcnewyork