During the prosecution’s closing arguments in Bill Cosby’s retrial on Tuesday, Cosby was seen laughing and smiling so much during statements by prosecutor Kristen Feden that she interrupted herself to exclaim, “He’s laughing like it’s funny! But there’s absolutely nothing funny about stripping a woman of her capacity to consent.”
Feden spared nothing in her half of the prosecution’s closing arguments, walking right over to the comedian in the courtroom, pointing at him and stating, “This man sitting right here. This is the man who artfully assaulted [Cosby accuser Andrea] Constand in such a way … that she had no idea about.”
Feden told the jury that Cosby “penetrated [Constand’s] vagina with his finger repeatedly, touched her breasts, and used her hand to manipulate his penis.” She also repeated that the case is “about trust. It’s about betrayal. And it’s about the inability to consent.” She tore into Cosby’s lawyers for attacking the character of six victims and Constand’s mother, telling the court, “Instead of asking what happened and trying to get to the bottom of what happened, they were asking, ‘What were you wearing? You got a drug history?’”
Prosecutor Stewart Ryan followed Feden with the prosecution’s conclusion, connecting dots such as, “Why would you need to explain anything about a consensual sexual encounter?” and “Why do you care if you’re being recorded if you just gave someone Benadryl?” He addressed many of the defense’s biggest talking points, particularly the lack of forensic evidence.
“Let’s think about what that forensic evidence would be,” Ryan told the jury. “Fibers from the victim’s clothing on the couch or a hair from her, proving she was in his home? A cotton swab from inside her vagina proving his DNA was in there? But all of those are things the defendant himself has said happened, from his own mouth.”
Jury deliberations are expected to begin on Wednesday.
Cosby is being re-tried on three counts of aggravated indecent assault, stemming from former Temple University employee Andrea Constand’s accusation that the comedian molested her in 2004 at his home outside of Philadelphia.
Cosby’s initial trial in the matter ended in a mistrial in July 2017 after the jury was unable to reach a verdict following five days of deliberations.