In 2005, Harrison Snyder was 10 years old when actor Bill Cosby admitted in a deposition that he gave women prescription sedatives before he had sex with them.
Snyder, now 22, was the youngest member of the jury that convicted Cosby, 80, on Thursday of three counts of sexual assault in the first celebrity trial of the #MeToo era.
But Snyder told ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Monday that he did not weigh Cosby’s Hollywood career or consider how he is emblematic of influential men using their stature to rape and assault women. The 2005 admittance, he said, was enough for him to confidently vote guilty.
“I think it was his deposition, really. Mr. Cosby admitted to giving these quaaludes to women, young women, in order to have sex with them,” Snyder said. He could not be immediately reached for comment.
That piece of evidence was years in the making.
A lawsuit filed by Andrea Constand in 2005 alleged that Cosby sexually assaulted her at his mansion in Elkins Park, Pa., the year before.
Cosby settled for nearly $3.4 million but described giving the now-banned quaaludes, a sedative, to women before having sex with them in the 1970s. He also admitted giving quaaludes to a 19-year old woman in Las Vegas before having sex with her and did the same with “other people.” Constand accused him of a similar method of drugging her.
The deposition was sealed, but the investigation was reopened in July 2015 after a judge revealed portions of the document on the request of the Associated Press. Cosby was arrested later that year and charged with three counts of sexual assault against Constand, but a judge declared a mistrial in June.
District Attorney Kevin R. Steele of Pennsylvania’s Montgomery County vowed to have Cosby back in court.
Less than a year later, the retrial began, on April 9, and included testimony from five other women who said they were abused in similar ways: drugging that led to sexual assaults. The criminal charges against Cosby involved only Constand’s allegations, however.
But Snyder said testimony from the other women did not push the decision over the top.
“I don’t think it really necessarily mattered that these other five women were here, because he said it himself that he used drugs for other women,” he said.
Snyder and the rest of jury said in a statement that their decision was influenced only by courtroom proceedings and did not discuss race or the #MeToo movement.
“After thoughtful and meticulous consideration of the information and evidence provided to us, we came to our unanimous verdict,” the jury said, according to the AP.
Snyder was, in many ways, an ideal juror. He told “Good Morning America” that he does not keep up with the news. And his youth made him more likely to miss Cosby’s cultural significance.
“I never watched ‘The Cosby Show’ or anything — a little too young for that,” he said.
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