Judge Neal E. Kravitz will decide GW basketball player Attila Cosby’s fate on nine misdemeanor counts Tuesday. Cosby faces a maximum of four-and-a-half years in prison if convicted of all charges.
Attorneys completed closing arguments Thursday, after three weeks of testimony from family members, experts and other witnesses.
The trial, which began June 25, has produced several new pieces of evidence that were not presented by the prosecution in Cosby’s first hearing last year. A judge dismissed felony sex abuse and other charges against Cosby last July.
The prosecution presented DNA evidence that matches blood from the tip of a broomstick, which that prosecutors allege Cosby used to assault a 46-year-old crack cocaine user, to a blood sample taken from the complainant. Dr. Frank Samuel Baechtel, an FBI employee, testified June 26 that samples taken from below the broomstick tip presented inconclusive evidence.
The complainant, who first testified June 27, told the court she had smoked more than $60 in crack cocaine May 15, 2000, the night Cosby took her to his GW residence hall room. Defense attorney Billy Martin has argued that the crack cocaine the woman injected blurred her sense of reality and time. But prosecutors argued that the woman was used to functioning while under the influence of crack cocaine and was not intoxicated the night Cosby picked her up.
The woman, an alleged prostitute, said in testimony she was standing on the corner of New Jersey Avenue and P Street, Northwest, trying to buy some crack cocaine when Cosby drove up to her. She said Cosby told her he had some drug for her to try, which she said convinced her to get in his car and go to his Guthridge Hall room.
Defense attorneys said Cosby left Club Platinum at 915 F St. and intended to drive back to his girlfriend Lisa Couser’s house by taking I-395. But construction and traffic forced Cosby to take a detour, Martin said.
Cosby said during his testimony last week the woman offered him oral sex when he drove by her.
Cosby said he did not agree to the offer, but the woman entered his car and he drove her back to his room. While he drove, the woman kept asking for crack or $10 to $15, he testified.
The prosecution and defense attorneys presented two different versions of what happened when Cosby entered his room with the woman.
Cosby said when he got back to his room, the woman started to perform oral sex on him. When he went to get a condom, Cosby testified, he noticed she was bleeding, which she said during her testimony was from a vaginal polyp.
Cosby said he first asked her politely to leave the room. But when she refused and kept asking for money, Cosby testified, he grew frustrated and embarrassed and told her to clean up his room before escorting her out. He said he bloodied the tip of the broom handle when he pointed to bloody facial tissues on the ground that he said fell from the woman’s pants.
Surveillance cameras in Guthridge show Cosby leading the woman out with a sweater covering her head – which Cosby said he did because he was embarrassed and did not want his teammates to see the woman.
But prosecutors said Cosby forcefully put the woman’s sweater over her head after demanding sex and forcing the woman to masturbate at gunpoint. They said he also sexually assaulted her with the broomstick.
Police did not find a gun in Cosby’s room, but a search of his room did yield a gun padlock and trigger-style lock manufactured by Sturm, Ruger and Co.
Cosby testified last week that he had owned two guns legally. He testified that bought a Glock pistol when he was a student at the University of New Mexico and a Sturm, Ruger and Co. P94 handgun last March. Cosby testified that he gave both guns away. Cosby’s mother and godsister.
Prosecutors also allege that Cosby’s godmother Geneva Couser obtained information unethically and divulged confidential police information about the case to Cosby. Witnesses who testified that Couser had access to that information also said they had no evidence she obtained any details about the case.
Couser testified that she photocopied a Metropolitan Police index card that contained information about two past reports of sexual assault by the complainant. Couser said detective Randy Brooks, head of the MPD sex crimes unit, requested the photocopies.
Cosby would have to re-earn his spot on GW’s basketball team even if acquitted of all charges. Head coach Karl Hobbs suspended him from the team July 5 citing academic requirements.
