Bill Cosby, who has now been found guilty of three felony counts of aggravated indecent assault, has reportedly compared his prison sentence to that of the late Nelson Mandela.
About 11 months after Cosby’s first trial ended in a mistrial, Cosby was determined guilty by a jury of seven men and five women. Bill Cosby has reportedly said he’s mentally preparing himself for incarceration, citing the former South African president’s experience as a political prisoner.
The New York Post’s Page Six column posted an interview following his conviction last week. The column says Cosby repeatedly spoke to Page Six over the past year with the agreement that nothing could be shared publicly during the legal proceeding.
‘When there was talk of a plea bargain, I said no,’ Cosby reportedly told Page Six last year. ‘I just refused to plead guilty to something that just didn’t happen.’ Cosby reportedly told the newspaper, ‘Why take a deal? Not when they want me to say that I’m a sex offender. I didn’t do what they said I did.’
Shutterstock | Michael CandeloriCosby reportedly told Page Six that he considered what Mandela endured in prison to prepare himself for going to ‘that place.’ ‘I think back to the time when Camille and I went to visit Nelson Mandela in South Africa,” Cosby reportedly told Page Six, referencing his visit to see Mandela with wife Camille Cosby. ‘He was a free man, but I remember when we met him at Robben Island where he had been in a prison for all of those years. I sat in that cell where he lived, and I saw how he lived… what he had to eat to live and what he went through.’
Shutterstock | WollertzCosby’s spokesman, Andrew Wyatt, is denying the comedian gave an interview to Page Six. ‘He never did that,’ Wyatt told ABC News on Sunday. ‘That’s totally false. He never gave Page Six an interview.’
A spokesperson for the New York Post, however, has said in a statement to ABC News, ‘The Post stands by its story.’
Shutterstock | Michael Candelori
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