bill cosby convicted as we've reported
the comedian now faces up to thirty
years in prison potentially the rest of
his life assuming that it's not
concurrent he was found guilty on all
three counts of aggravated indecent
assault yesterday his lawyer says that
they do plan to appeal saying this we
are very disappointed by the verdict we
don't think mr. Cosby's guilty of
anything and the fight is not over
joining me this morning to discuss what
happens next his attorney Rick Alexander
who is a former sex crimes prosecutor I
might add
first of all Rick thanks for being here
- appreciate it your were you surprised
by this even one of the you know victims
said that she was surprised that this
happened perhaps suggesting that because
he is a celebrity that you know and
considering the fact that that a jury a
year ago you know failed to reach a
verdict that this might not happen the
way it did yesterday this is unusual
what's very sexual battery type cases of
any kind are among the most difficult to
get a conviction on and in this case are
two factors that played into that one is
it's a people that knew each other those
are very hard to get convictions on to
begin with and then he's a celebrity and
that almost never happened so this is
may reflect a sea change in what's going
on in our country well and let's talk
about two things first of all yeah real
lack of any forensic evidence also kind
of a he said she said type of situation
here this happened what 14 years ago so
far as a prosecutor this was not easy
but what we saw that was different this
time as opposed to last year during that
trial is five people were able to take
this stand and kind of talk about bad
acts right you know involving a mr.
Cosby how do you think that made a
pivotal change in terms of the outcome
of this I think that made a huge
difference because you see a modus
operandi and it's all the same it's the
blue pills and putting women in a
position where they can't defend
themselves and it happened multiple
times and you had multiple different
women's credibility on the line and
therefore it's just more plausible the
jury you see five different women saying
the same thing happened then they tend
to believe it you know and I know that
you know there's
rigorous process of picking jurors and
pretrial publicity and things of that
nature but considering that this has
been in the public eye for so long and
also we cannot forget the me2 movement
really picked up steam last year this is
the first celebrity sexual assault trial
since that movement really picked up
force do you think that those two things
had a factor pretrial publicity and me
too
there's always pretrial publicity
involving any celebrity type case so the
question is can you get jurors that can
be fair that can put that out outside of
there they're thinking the me2 movement
I doubt had a public sense on the jurors
but it's it's a feeling that's going on
in our community a change in the
mentality of a jurors walking into the
room that we might not have had 20 years
ago so you know an appeal is always
triggered in these situations so that's
not a real surprise obviously do you
think that the pretrial publicity
element of this could be a factor in
that appeal I would hope not
no I mean usually appeals affect some
kind of question of law maybe the
question could be should they have let
the for women testify or or other
rulings that the judge made but that
shouldn't be a factor it may play a role
in whether the judge remains mr. Cosby
into custody he Sh
he normally would be and that was it
that was worth that's surprising to you
here that he was allowed to go home
basically wait until the sentencing
hearing first question then very quickly
second question do you think that he
will be allowed to stay out of jail
pending you know this appellate process
as we saw with congresswoman Brown
however that was a federal case yes and
it wasn't this kind of crime I would be
surprised I would expect him perhaps to
be out until his sentencing hearing and
then when he is sentenced he is remanded
into custody while the appeal waits but
we'll see mr. Alexander thank you for
being here - appreciate it