Cosby is declared a 'sexually violent predator'

A judge declared Bill Cosby a "sexually violent predator" on Tuesday as a first step toward sentencing 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 prepared to sentence Cosby for violating Temple University women's basketball administrator Andrea Constand at his suburban Philadelphia estate in 2004.

The comic once known as America's Dad faced anywhere from probation to 10 years in prison after being convicted in April in the first celebrity trial of the #MeToo era.

Prosecutors asked for five to 10 years in prison. The defense requested house arrest, saying Cosby is too old and helpless to do time behind bars. He is legally blind.

Cosby's lawyers had fought the "sexually violent predator" designation, arguing that Pennsylvania's sex-offender law remains 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 ocurt 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."
Tuesday's sentencing was a reckoning accusers and prosecutors said was decades in the making for the once-beloved entertainer known for his role as wise and understanding Dr. Cliff Huxtable on the top-ranked, 1980s-era "Cosby Show."