WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2018
AN AMERICAN PRINT MEDIA PUBLICATION
Former Comedian Cosby Gets 3 to 10 Years Quincy in Prison for Sex Assault Jones
at 85: ‘I’m Too Old to Be Full of it’
NORRISTOWN, Pa. (AP) — His Hollywood career and good-guy image in ruins, Bill Cosby was led off to prison in handcuffs Tuesday at age 81, sentenced to three to 10 years behind bars for drugging and sexually assaulting a woman.
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he punishment made him the first celebrity of the #MeToo era to be sent to prison and all but completed the dizzying, late-in-life fall from grace for the comedian, former TV star and breaker of racial barriers. “It is time for justice. Mr. Cosby, this has all circled back to you. The time has come,” Montgomery County Judge Steven O’Neill said. He quoted from victim Andrea Constand’s own statement to the court, in which she said Cosby took her “beautiful, young spirit and crushed it.” Cosby declined the opportunity to speak before the sentence came down, and afterward sat smiling, laughing and chatting with his defense team. His wife of 54 years, Camille, was not in court. Constand smiled broadly upon hearing the punishment and was hugged by others in the courtroom. Cosby’s lawyers asked that he be allowed to remain free on bail while he appeals his conviction, but the judge appeared incredulous over the request and ordered him locked up immediately, saying that “he could quite possibly be a danger to the community.” The comedian removed his watch, tie and jacket and walked out in a white dress shirt and red suspenders, his hands cuffed in front of him. Former model Janice Dickinson, who was among the 60 or so women who have come forward to accuse Cosby of drugging and violating them over the past five decades, looked at Cosby and said: “Here’s the last laugh, pal.” Another Cosby accuser in the courtroom, Lili Bernard, said: “There is solace, absolutely. It is his fame and his fortune and his phony philanthropy that has allowed him to get away with impunity. Maybe this will send a message to other powerful perpetrators that they will be caught and punished.” The punishment, which also included a $25,000 fine, came at the end of a two-day hearing at which the judge declared Cosby a “sexually violent predator” — a modernday scarlet letter that subjects him to monthly counseling for the rest of his life and requires that neighbors and schools be notified of his whereabouts. The comic once known as America’s Dad for his role on the top-rated “Cosby Show” in the 1980s was convicted in April of violating Constand, Temple University women’s basketball administrator, at his suburban Philadelphia estate in 2004. It was the first celebrity trial of the #MeToo era. Cosby faced a sentence of anywhere from probation to 10 years in prison. His lawyers asked for house arrest, saying n COSBY, see page 9
By Jake Coyle
TORONTO (AP)—Quincy Jones holds out his hands.
L Mark Makela/Pool Photo via AP Bill Cosby is taken away in handcuffs after he was sentenced to three-to 10-years for felony sexual assault.
Compton Murder Victim Was NBA Player’s Father COMPTON—Authorities said a man killed in a Compton shooting last week was the father of NBA player Richard Jefferson, as they continued their efforts to solve the crime. Richard Allen Jefferson, 65, of Inglewood was fatally shot about 7 p.m. Wednesday in the 600 block of West Peach Street, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department reported. No arrests have been reported. According to the sheriff’s department, the victim was on
the southwest corner of Peach Street and Paulsen Avenue when a dark-colored vehicle with several men inside drove southbound on Paulsen and fired numerous shots at him. He died at a hospital. Descriptions of the suspects were not available. It was unclear if the shooting was gangrelated and no motive was known, authorities said. Richard Jefferson, a 17-year NBA veteran, won a championship with the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2016 and played with the Denver Nuggets last season.
ike Jones, an easy raconteur, they tell stories. There’s a small scar from when he, as a youngster in 1930s Chicago, accidently wandered into a gang’s territory. “They nailed my hand to a fence with a switchblade, man,” he says. Jones points to a ring on his right pinkie left to him by Frank Sinatra, bearing the singer’s family crest. It has stayed lodged on his finger for years just at it did on Sinatra’s. “The friendship was so strong. You can’t describe it. We loved to party together, make music together,” says Jones, smiling. “I’d tell (drummer) Sonny Payne: ‘Let’s get the back beat a little stronger,’ because Frank was only lifting his feet about a foot,” says Jones, stomping his foot to a beat. “Let’s get a foot and a half.” For six decades Jones has been the foot-stomping back beat to a staggering breadth of American music. His hands have been over everything. From Ella Fitzgerald to Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles to Michael Jackson, “Roots” to “In the Heat of the Night,” Jones—a trumpeter, pianist, composer, arranger, producer—is the great chameleon of 20th century music. He has recorded 2,900 songs, 300 albums and 51 film and TV scores. He has been 79 times nominated for a Grammy, winning 27. And he has produced seven kids, one of whom— Rashida Jones—has chronicled him in the new documentary, “Quincy.” “When I look at it now, I’m overwhelmed,” Jones said in an interview shortly before “Quincy” premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. “To have your
life jump back at you on the screen—wooo!” “Quincy,” which will debut on Netflix and in select theaters Friday, is an intimate portrait of a hard-to-summarize legend. He’s now 85 and has been through a few health scares. But after giving up drinking two and a half years ago, he says, “I feel like I’m 19.” And he has lost little of his curiosity or verve. Jones made headlines last winter for a pair of candid interviews in which he discussed, among other things, what he considered the Beatles’ weak musicianship and dating Ivanka Trump. He later apologized but didn’t take back any of his tales. “I’m too old to be full of it,” Jones chuckles. And while Jones was in a more relaxed mood in Toronto, he was happy to contradict reports of the Eagles’ “Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975” passing Jackson’s “Thriller” (which Jones produced) as the all-time best-selling album. “We had 150 million, man,” he says, alluding to worldwide sales. “That’s bull----.” Jones, who in 2017 won a suit against the Jackson estate over unpaid royalties, also continued his critique of the pop star’s penchant for lifting songs or not accurately crediting collaborators. “It’s in the music. ‘Smooth Criminal,’ that says it,” says Jones. “Michael was one patient and humble human being when it came to learning,” he adds. “His idols were James Brown, Sammy Davis, Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly. I saw him copying their things.” And while he applauds contemporary acts like Chance the Rapper and Kendrick Lamar, he believes there are fewer great songs today. A master of songcraft, Jones sees the art form diminishing. “What I’m missing the most is the songs,” says Jones. n Q, see page 9
Jones— a trumpeter, pianist, composer, arranger, producer —is the great chameleon of 20th century music.
Dodgers Dedicate 50th Dreamfield for Local Youth, Promise 25 More
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Photo by Jon SooHoo / Los Angeles Dodgers