NORRISTOWN, Pa. (AP) — A judge declared Bill Cosby a “sexually violent predator” on Tuesday as he prepared to sentence the 81-year-old comedian for drugging and sexually assaulting a woman over a decade ago.
The classification means that Cosby must undergo monthly counseling for the rest of his life and report quarterly to authorities. His name will appear on a sex-offender registry sent to neighbors, schools and victims.
Montgomery County Judge Steven O’Neill made the decision as he weighed the punishment for Cosby for violating Temple University women’s basketball administrator Andrea Constand at his suburban Philadelphia estate in 2004.
Cosby declined the opportunity to address the court before the judge retreated to his chambers around noon to weigh the sentence. O’Neill said he would announce his decision early in the afternoon.
The comic once known as America’s Dad for his role as wise and understanding Dr. Cliff Huxtable on “The Cosby Show” in the 1980s faced anywhere from probation to 10 years in prison after being convicted in April in the first celebrity trial of the #MeToo era.
Cosby’s lawyers asked for house arrest, saying Cosby — who is legally blind — is too old and helpless to do time in prison. Prosecutors asked for five to 10 years behind bars, saying the comic could still be a threat to women.
Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele rejected the notion that “age, infirmity, should somehow equate to mercy.”
“He was good at hiding this for a long time. Good at suppressing this for a long time. So it’s taken a long time to get there,” Steele said.
Cosby’s lawyers had fought the “sexually violent predator” designation, arguing that Pennsylvania’s sex-offender law is unconstitutional and that he is no threat to the public at his age. But O’Neill said prosecutors had met their burden of proof by “clear and convincing” evidence.
When the ruling came down, a woman in courtroom shot her fist into the air and whispered, “Yessss!”
Meanwhile, Constand said in a statement submitted to the court and released Tuesday that she has had to cope with years of anxiety and self-doubt that have left her “stuck in a holding pattern.”
Constand, 45, said her training as a professional basketball player had led her to think she could handle anything, but “life as I knew it” ended on the night she said Cosby knocked her out with pills and penetrated her with his fingers as she lay nearly paralyzed on a couch.
Constand said she now lives alone with her two dogs and has trouble trusting people.
“When the sexual assault happened, I was a young woman brimming with confidence and looking forward to a future bright with possibilities,” she wrote in her five-page statement.
“Now, almost 15 years later, I’m a middle-aged woman who’s been stuck in a holding pattern for most of her adult life, unable to heal fully or to move forward.”
She also wrote: “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.”
In the years since Constand first went to authorities in 2005, more than 60 women have accused Cosby of sexual misconduct, though none of those claims have led to criminal charges.
The judge ruled on Cosby’s sex-offender status after a defense psychologist, Timothy Foley, testified that the chances of the comedian committing another sex offense are “extraordinarily low” because he is old, legally blind and needs help getting around.
BLOG: ALL COSBY'S VICTIMS WERE WHITE!
On Monday, a psychologist for the state
testified that Cosby appears to have a mental
disorder that gives him an uncontrollable
urge to assault women.
Cosby was smiling and joking with his spokesman and sheriff’s deputies as he settled into the courtroom Tuesday. On Day 1 of the sentencing, the comic laughed at times as the psychologist for the state testified.
Cameras were not allowed in the courtroom; they are generally banned in Pennsylvania.
The proceedings took place as another extraordinary #MeToo drama continued to unfold on Capitol Hill, where Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh faces allegations of sexual misconduct from more than three decades ago.
The AP does not typically identify people who say they are victims of sexual assault unless they come forward publicly, which Constand and other accusers have done.
Cosby became the first black actor to star in a prime-time TV show, “I Spy,” in 1965. He remained a Hollywood A-lister for much of the next half-century.
DC police investigating murder of white jogger as a hate crime
Washington, D.C. police are investigating
the savage stabbing death of a white jogger by a black man as a potential hate
crime.
Wendy Martinez was allegedly stabbed 7
times by 23 year old Anthony Crawford. Video of the aftermath of the attack
(now unavailable) showed Crawford fleeing the scene.
Investigators
mentioned that Martinez's murder might have been “racially motivated” because
Crawford “does not like white people,” according to WUSA9.
Police said
the attack was “unprovoked,” and did not appear to be a robbery. Crawford did
not cooperate with police, authorities said.
Video footage captured Martinez, who was newly-engaged, stumbling into a
Chinese take-out restaurant on Tuesday, covered in blood. She then collapsed.
Police said
she’d been stabbed 7 times, including in the neck, face and head.
A bloody
knife and blood-covered t-shirt were discovered several blocks away from the
stabbing, police said.
Authorities
also released footage of the suspect fleeing the scene.
"This is
one of those types of unsettling incidents that sometimes happens in a large
city, but this seems like a singular incident," Chief of Police Peter
Newsham said during a press conference.
WATCH: Black man
Goes on Rampage in Seattle Target Store
AP Photo/Elise Amendola, File
Store
surveillance video reveals a man going on a rampage at a Seattle Target store
that he allegedly terrorized on three occasions, according to KIRO 7.
According
to King County Sheriff’s documents, Jason L. Lewis, 41, did not just smash
merchandise; he also headbutted a store employee. Furthermore, Lewis allegedly
tried to kick open a locked cabinet storing Apple iPads, smashed several
counter displays, and threw a large standing display down an escalator just
before he ran out of the store on August 17:
Surveillance
video allegedly shows the accused using parts of a store display as a weapon to
hit employees who were trying to apprehend him and as a tool to break open the
locked Apple display case. The man is then seen pulling the case from its
moorings, dragging it to an escalator, and sending it crashing down the
stairway as customers rush to get out of the way.
Court
filings charge that Lewis then loaded several backpacks with as many Apple
iPhones, watches, and other items as he could before exiting the store. He is
also accused of stealing items from another local store that day as well
as stealing items from that same Target on other occasions.
An
employee of Belltown Storage told police Lewis threatened him with violence on
August 21.
Lewis
has a long arrest record filled with incidents of violence, threatening
behavior, threats of terrorism, and convictions on weapons charges in Texas.
You know when you see a headline of "looters" you're going to
be looking a blacks!
HEATHER MAC DONALD
WINDOW INTO
THE DEPRAVED GHETTO BLACK CULTURE of VIOLENCE, HATE AND RACISM
BLACK LIVES
MATTER? Life doesn’t matter to America’s ignorant ghetto blacks period!
THERE IS NO
SUB-CULTURE IN THE WORLD THAT MURDERS AND ABORTS ITS OWN MORE THAN AMERICA’S
GHETTO BLACKS!
WATCH: Robbery Suspect Flees After
Deli Clerk Takes Away His Gun
NYPD
18 Sep 2018191
A deli clerk in the Bronx wrestled the gun away from a would-be robber
Monday and everything was caught on surveillance video.
CBS New York reports that the deli
clerk, 38-year-old Mina Farag, did what he had to do once face-to-face
with the armed suspect, whom the New York Police Department believes was in his
20s.
Farag said suspect raised suspicion
the moment he walked into the store. He said, “He was like going around the
store. His bag was open. In the beginning I thought he was trying to take
something from the store.”
Then the suspect allegedly came
behind the counter and confront Farag with a handgun.
Farag said, “He showed me his
gun and said, ‘Give me money.’ I tried to calm him down. I told him the money’s
right there. Once he tried to grab the money, I grabbed his hand with the gun with
my two hands.”
The surveillance video shows other
customers enter as Farag and the suspect fought over the gun, but no one came
to Farag’s aid.
Police say the suspect fled the deli
without getting any money. “He was wearing a black hooded sweatshirt and a
black backpack.”
AWR Hawkins is an
award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News, the host of
the Breitbart podcast Bullets with AWR Hawkins,
and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a
weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart
News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on
Twitter: @AWRHawkins.
Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range
at breitbart.com/downrange.
Watch: Teens Rob Store After Watching Clerk Suffer Heart Attack
Police in Washington state searching for two males caught on camera
ignoring a store clerk who collapsed in front of them from an apparent medical
issue, choosing instead to step around him to rob the store. https://abcn.ws/2N2IOLA
Three
males are caught on camera robbing a Shell station Saturday after watching the clerk
collapse from a heart attack and leaving the man to die.
Per ABC News, police in Auburn, WA, are
on the hunt for the two young men seen in the surveillance footage, as well as
the adult, who witnessed the man collapse and proceeded to take money and items
from the store while one of them even took money out of the clerk’s hand as he
was on the floor.
The
teens returned multiple times, taking money and cigarettes.
Police
said none of the suspects did anything to save the man.
According
to store manager Angela Sharapova, the teens ran away with $178.
“It
just breaks our hearts,” she told KOMO.
Auburn
police said the incident began with one of the young males picking up a
pepperoni stick from the counter and handing one to the other young male. The
older man attempted to pay for a different item, but not the pepperoni sticks,
and an argument began.
That
is when Zarif Kelada, a father of three, suffered what police deemed a
“major medical issue.”
KOMO
reports Kelada was taken to the hospital and is currently on life support.
Kelada’s
co-workers set up a GoFundMe
page to help the man described as “a friendly, dependable
employee, husband and father of 3” with his mounting medical bills.
Police
have identified the three males in the robbery, but are still looking to track
them down.
and you know she's (he?)black!
remember!
black lives matter! it's all other life that doesn't to these violent
ghetto blacks!
Woman Gets 3 Years in Jail for Throwing Dog Off San Francisco
Parking Garage
SFPD via SF Gate
A woman received
a three-year jail sentence on Thursday after she was found guilty of throwing a
four-year-old Chihuahua to its death off the seventh floor of a San Francisco
parking garage in February.
A
judge sentenced Wakeen “LaLa” Best to three years in state prison with
eight months of mandatory supervised release after a jury found her guilty of
animal cruelty, vandalism, and auto burglary following a day of deliberation
and a three-week trial, CBS San Francisco reported.
Prosecutors
said the district attorney asked the judge to give Best the maximum sentence of
three years in prison and eight months of supervised release.
“We asked for the maximum sentence because the defendant has
shown no remorse whatsoever and went so far as to kill an innocent animal that
got in her way while she burglarized a vehicle,” Max
Szabo, a spokesperson for the San Francisco District Attorneys Office, said in
a statement. “The behavior is despicable, and she needs to be held
accountable.”
Best
entered a San Francisco parking garage on February 10 at 2 p.m. and broke into
a Mercedes-Benz parked on the seventh floor, prosecutors said.
The
vehicle’s owner testified during the trial that he left his four-year-old
Chihuahua named Dunky in his car while he grabbed lunch, only to find his pet’s
dead body on the street, KTVU reported.
Authorities
say the canine barked at Best before she
flung the animal off the top of the garage.
Investigators
identified Best as a suspect after looking at surveillance videos and arrested
her the day after the incident.