Bill Cosby's sexual assault trial has ended in mistrial:
Cosby is thankful for fans who have supported him as deliberations slogged on and has been posting his thanks:
After entering Day 4 of jury deliberations after a trial that lasted six, jurors first indicated they weren't able to agree on a verdict. They were instructed to keep at it a number of times.
Cosby’s fate had been hanging in the balance while jurors deliberated in Norristown, Penn. While awaiting a verdict to emanate from inside the courthouse, reporters have taken to documenting activities outside it.
Wednesday's action involved this guy getting booted after he brought his recliner to the courthouse steps:
The 79-year-old entertainer did not testify, as he indicated during a radio interview on the eve of jury selection.
“When you have to deal with examination, cross examination, (there’s) more than two sides to every story. Sometimes it’s four or five,” he told Sirius XM radio host Michael Smerconish in an expansive, often meandering conversation during which he offered few succinct answers. “I just don’t want to sit there and have to figure out what I believe is a truthful answer.”
Seven men and five women served on the jury.
Cosby was accused of drugging and assaulting Temple University employee Andrea Constand at his estate more than a decade ago. His legal team has branded the encounter as a consensual, romantic liaison.
His "television daughter," Atlanta actress Keshia Knight Pulliam, had been with him in court and explained her support during a Wednesday interview with NBC's "Today Show."
“It’s easy to be there for someone when things are good,” she said. “I wanted to do what I would have wanted to receive.”
She walked with him into court and sat through opening arguments.
“It was important for me to be there,” said Pulliam, who played Rudy as a child on “The Cosby Show” back in the day. The new mom now lives in Atlanta. “I truly believe you’re innocent until proven guilty.”
She does not dismiss the serious allegations her television father faced.
“As a woman, as a graduate of Spelman College … and being the mother to a daughter it’s nothing I take lightly or that I condone in any way, shape or form,” she said. “He’s clear that yes, he has been unfaithful to his wife. Ultimately if she chooses to forgive him for those things, that’s between the two of them.”
Pulliam said, she would have been “disappointed” in a guilty verdict but it wouldn't have changed her regard for Cosby.
“People falter,” she said. “People make mistakes. Things happen.”
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