If a convicted sex offender wants to be considered for parole, they must typically, according to legal experts, be willing to show remorse for their actions. Comedian Bill Cosby, who was convicted on three charges of felony aggravated indecent assault and classified as a “sexually violent predator†last year, says he would rather serve his full ten-year prison sentence than do so.
Cosby, 82, recently made this point explicitly clear in an interview from his prison cell with the National Newspaper Publishers Association’s BlackPressUSA.com, the first he’s given since his high-profile trial concluded over a year ago. In April 2018, a grand jury found him guilty of the three assault charges for drugging and sexually assaulting Temple University director of basketball operations Andrea Constand at his home in 2004. Then, in September 2018, the comedian was sentenced to three to ten years in prison.
“When I come up for parole, they’re not going to hear me say that I have remorse,†Cosby told the website. “I was there. I don’t care what group of people come along and talk about this when they weren’t there. They don’t know.â€
This past June, Cosby filed a formal appeal arguing that his criminal conviction was flawed because the judge had considered the “strikingly dissimilar†testimonies of five of his other accusers, whom prosecutors called on to bolster Constand’s claims that Cosby is a sexual predator. (Though Cosby was only convicted for sexually assaulting Constand, more than 60 additional women have accused him of rape or sexual assault. However, the statue of limitations had expired in the majority of their cases. Cosby maintains his innocence.)
“It’s all a set-up,†Cosby told the outlet of his conviction. “That whole jury thing. They were imposters.â€
If Cosby’s appeal is rejected, then that’s that; he’ll likely be serving the remaining eight years and nine months of his maximum sentence. But this possibility doesn’t appear to faze him. In the interview, Cosby said he’s been in relatively high spirits since starting his sentence, and that he even has a nickname for his jail cell: “my penthouse.â€