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Brendan McDermid | Reuters
Actor and comedian Bill Cosby arrives with his wife Camille for the sixth day of his sexual assault trial at the Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown, Pennsylvania, U.S. June 12, 2017.
A Pennsylvania jury convened to hear sexual assault allegations against Bill Cosby deadlocked on Saturday after days of deliberations, forcing the trial judge to declare a mistrial.
The 79-year old actor and comedian, known affably as “America’s Dad” has been laid low by allegations that he drugged and assaulted several women over the course of decades. Throughout it all, Cosby’s wife Camille has been supportive, and she issued a statement that thanked the jurors while lambasting the district attorney and the judge.
The sequestered jury had been in deliberations since Monday, and tensions were rising as the panel found itself unable to reach consensus on whether Cosby had drugged and molested Andrea Constand, a Temple University employee, at his home in Philadelphia more than a decade ago.
The judge asked each individually: “Do you agree that there is a hopeless deadlock that cannot be resolved by further deliberations?” Each juror answered yes.
Cosby will now be released on bail, with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania already stating it intends to retry the case. He still faces a litany of other legal woes, including several civil suits.
During the deliberations, the panel asked several times to revisit key evidence, including Cosby’s decade-old admissions that he in fact did fondle Constand after giving her pills in 2004. Still, the actor retained a passionate core of supporters as well as detractors—some of whom lashed out in the wake of the mistrial.
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As lurid accusations became major headlines, Cosby’s wife Camille was supportive, and was frequently photographed by his side throughout the trial.
In a statement posted to Cosby’s verified Twitter account on Saturday, Camille Cosby expressed gratitude for the jury’s decision, but lashed out at the prosecutor as “heinously and exploitively [sp] ambitious.” She also minced no words regarding her thoughts about the media and Cosby’s accusers.
Statement from Camille Cosby
–NBC News and The Associated Press contributed to this article.
