Mistrial for Cosby after jury deadlocks on sex-assault charges

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The sexual assault trial of Bill Cosby ended in a mistrial Saturday morning after the jury failed to reach a verdict on the only set of criminal charges to emerge from the allegations of dozens of women who say they were drugged and assaulted by the celebrity once known as "America's Dad."

Montgomery County Judge Steven T. O'Neill dismissed the panel of seven men and five women after they returned for a sixth day of deliberations and again reported they were hopelessly deadlocked.

Prosecutors did not immediately say if they would seek a retrial.

Cosby looked glum and tired as the announcement came. His supporters in the courtroom tried not to betray any emotion.

"I remind everyone that this is not vindication or victory," O'Neill said.

That ambiguous ending capped off a nearly two-week trial that drew worldwide news coverage and raised questions about the role race, sexual entitlement, a scandal-hungry media and Hollywood's casting couch culture played in the ruin of a celebrity icon.

It also offered some measure of vindication for Cosby, who has maintained that he never sexually assaulted anyone and that prosecutors made the right choice in deciding not to pursue the case when Andrea Constand first came forward in 2005 to claim he had drugged and molested her at his Cheltenham home a year earlier.

Still, the outcome of the trial seems unlikely to quiet the critics who have plagued Cosby for nearly three years – a stretch that has seen him stripped of countless honors and shunned by studios and many former Hollywood friends.

The news came after five days of deliberations, during which the jury had eaten nine meals together locked in a Norristown conference room, returned to the courtroom 12 times with questions, prompted six defense calls for a mistrial with their lengthy debate and spent more than 52 hours in talks behind closed doors.

After declaring themselves deadlocked Thursday morning, jurors spent another 20 hours in talks, a signal that appeared as if they may have been making progress.

But and as the trial entered Father's Day weekend, the panel of seven men and five women returned Saturday morning amid no signs they were any closer to a verdict for the celebrity once known as "America's Dad." It was unclear if they had resumed deliberations at 9 a.m., as scheduled. A few minutes before 10, the lawyers and reporters were called to the courtroom for the news.

Before court broke around 9 p.m. Friday, Cosby lawyer Brian McMonagle had renewed his call to shut down the prolonged discussion and declare a mistrial – a motion that was again denied.

"This court has worked them 12-hour days," he argued. "I believe this jury is tired, it's weary. I'm afraid they believe they are being compelled to come back with a verdict."

But even O'Neill rebuffed the latest request — noting the panel had given him no indication that they were not making progress since they reported a deadlock Thursday morning — he described the lengthy deliberation phase as "unprecedented."

"In a case of this size, this magnitude, this length, as long as this jury wishes to continue to deliberate, I will let them deliberate," O'Neill declared.