NORRISTOWN, Pa. (CN) – A judge declared a mistrial Saturday in the Bill Cosby sexual assault trial, with the jury deadlocked on whether the comedian intentionally incapacitated a woman he had sex with in 2004.
Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele said he will retry the case immediately. Though the commonwealth has a year to do so, Steele said prosecutors will try to get the case on the schedule in the next four months.
"Our plan is to move forward as soon as possible," Steele told reporters. "We have to re-evaluate the case."
Cosby's 12-person jury had been sequestered in Norristown, Pennsylvania, weighing the three counts against the 79-year-old since closing arguments concluded on June 12. Each count carries a possible 10-year sentence, if convicted.
One of Cosby's representatives read a statement to reporters after the mistrial announcement from the comedian's wife, Camille Cosby. "This is a manifestation of justice based on the facts, not lies," she said.
To ensure a fair trial, Judge Steven O’Neill called in the jury from about 300 miles away in Allegheny County, home to Pittsburgh. Sequestered juries are not uncommon for high-profile cases. Indeed the jury that acquitted O.J. Simpson of murder was sequestered for 265 days, the longest in American history.
Cosby’s trial in Montgomery County by contrast lasted just six days, not including 50-plus hours of jury deliberations over these last five days. The jury reported Thursday that they were unable to come to unanimous conclusion on Cosby’s guilt, but O’Neill directed them to keep trying.
Race and a fall from grace have been two other parallels between the Cosby and Simpson cases.
Before his scandal-ridden descent in 2014, Cosby had been considered interchangeable with the wholesome patriarch Dr. Cliff Huxtable, whom he played for eight seasons on “The Cosby Show.”
These last three years, however, have been marked by dozens of women coming forward about allegedly nonconsensual sexual encounters with Cosby dating back to the 1970s.
Cosby met his trial accuser, Andrea Constand, at Temple University where he was a trustee and she was director of operations for the women’s basketball team.
Thirty-five years younger than the comedian, Constand testified in the trial that she had come to see Cosby as a mentor and father figure, unaware that the attention he paid her was romantic. On the night of her alleged assault in early 2004, Constand said she had sought Cosby’s guidance about a possible career change.
She claimed that Cosby incapacitated her at his house in Cheltenham, a suburb of Philadelphia, and then had sex with her when she could not consent.
Constand, who is a lesbian, reported Cosby to the police in 2005, about a year after her alleged attack, but prosecutors initially found the case too weak to prosecute.