Bill Cosby’s next trial will carry weight of #MeToo movement

FILE: Bill Cosby (Photo By The World Affairs Council of Philadelphia, CC BY 2.0)

PHILADELPHIA — Jurors couldn’t agree the first time around whether to accept a woman’s story that she was sexually assaulted over a decade ago by Bill Cosby.

Now he faces a retrial in less than 90 days in a vastly different cultural climate, one in which powerful men from Hollywood to the U.S. Senate are being toppled by allegations of sexual misconduct.

The shift is clearly on Cosby’s mind, as he quipped to a reporter after shaking her hand: “Please don’t put me on MeToo.”

Legal experts say the seismic change in supporting victims of sexual assault will likely trickle into the Cosby retrial, slated to begin April 2.