PHILADELPHIA, Pa. (NBC News) - After a weeklong trial and six days of deliberations the jury was unable to reach a consensus on three counts of sexual misconduct and a mistrial was declared.
A Pennsylvania jury was unable to reach a verdict in the Bill Cosby sex assault case in suburban Philadelphia.
Jurors told Common Pleas Judge Steven O'Neill Saturday they were hopelessly deadlocked on charges the comedian drugged and molested Andrea Constand in 2004. The judge had sent the jury from outside Pittsburgh back to deliberate Thursday but they were unable to come to a consensus on any of the three counts.
"I get emotional how hard you've worked," O'Neil said. It's "one of the most courageous acts I've ever seen In the justice system."
District Attorney Kevin Steele said he intends to retry the case. The case was delivered to the jury Monday afternoon after a brief defense, which didn't include the 79-year-old testifying. Cosby's attorneys called a single witness: the detective who led the 2005 investigation into allegations that the comedian drugged and violated Constand at his Montgomery County, Pennsylvania home.
The prosecution rested a week earlier after five swift days of testimony in the case that could have sent Cosby to prison for the rest of his life.
The defense's main goal in the prosecution phase of the case was to attack the credibility of Constand and the other accuser, Kelly Johnson, who had corroborating evidence in the form of her 1996 workers' compensation claim.
A lawyer on the case recalled her startling account of being drugged and sexually assaulted by Cosby, but his notes revealed a glaring discrepancy in the account. He said the encounter occurred in 1990, while Johnson insists it was 1996.
The defense had more trouble trying to discredit Constand, 44, who spent some seven hours on the witness stand. Cosby's lawyers hammered home the point that she doesn't know just when it happened, and they questioned why she had regular phone contact with Cosby later that spring, including more than 50 calls with him.
Constand said she had to return calls from the Temple University trustee because he was an important booster and she worked for the women's basketball team. She filed a police complaint in January 2005 after moving back home to the Toronto area and then sued Cosby in March of that year when the local prosecutor decided not to charge him.
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