Author: Laura King / Source: latimes.com
It’s the same courthouse, the same accuser, the same defendant. But much has changed since Bill Cosby’s sexual assault case resulted in a mistrial nearly a year ago.
Monday’s opening statements in the comedian’s retrial in a Pennsylvania court were expected to hinge on the question of whether what happened between Cosby and Andrea Constand one night in 2004 amounted to a consensual sexual encounter, or a trusted mentor’s attack on a helpless, drugged woman.
In the initial 11-day trial, which ended in June 2017, jurors were unable to reach a verdict. In the intervening months, the #MeToo movement ignited, seeking to hold to account scores of powerful men accused of sexual assault or harassment.
The woman, among about half a dozen people chanting in support of Cosby’s accuser, jumped over a barricade and lunged toward Cosby but was intercepted by sheriff’s deputies. The woman, identified as Nicolle Rochelle, 39, of Little Falls, N.J., was led away in handcuffs and charged with disorderly conduct. Cosby seemed startled but physically unscathed.
Rochelle, who appeared in several episodes of “The Cosby Show,” said in a telephone interview with reporters that she did not intend to physically harm Cosby but wanted him to be aware of her. The names of some of Cosby’s accusers were written on her body.
Rochelle said that Cosby had never behaved inappropriately to her on set but that, nonetheless, she was…
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