For decades Bill Cosby was “America’s Dad,” loved by millions for his role as an affable doctor and benevolent father on long-running hit TV sitcom “The Cosby Show.”
On Monday the disgraced 79-year-old goes on trial for aggravated indecent assault, accused of drugging and sexually assaulting a former university basketball director at his home in Philadelphia 13 years ago.
Some 60 women have since emerged to publicly accuse Cosby of four decades of serial sexual abuse — pulverizing his reputation, ending his career and cementing a brutal fall from grace for an actor who shattered racial barriers.
But the trial in Norristown, Pennsylvania is likely to be the only criminal case brought against Cosby, formerly one of America’s most popular entertainers, as the vast majority of alleged abuse happened too long ago to prosecute.
A 12-person jury in the Montgomery County Courthouse will decide Cosby’s guilt or innocence in a trial expected to last two weeks.
If convicted, he risks spending the rest of his life behind bars on a minimum 10-year sentence and a $25,000 fine.
His accuser is Andrea Constand, 44, who at the time was director of basketball operations at Temple University, Cosby’s alma mater.
The comedian served on the university’s Board of Trustees until his resignation under an avalanche of scandal in 2014.
Constand alleges that Cosby plied her with pills and wine, and then sexually assaulted her when she went to his home in early 2004 to discuss plans to move to Canada and switch careers.