In a new interview with the Associated Press, attorney Kristen Feden opened up about the challenges and frustrations she encountered prosecuting one of the world’s most famous men, cultural icon Bill Cosby. Among them was Cosby’s arrogance, which Feden says was on full display during his trial.
Cosby was convicted last week on three counts of aggravated indecent assault for drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand, a former Temple University employee, at his home outside Philadelphia in 2004.
Feden, who had called Cosby a “con man” during the trial, told the AP that at one point, as she was laying out for the jury the similarities between Cosby’s conduct with Constand and his with five of his other accusers, she caught the comedian smirking out of the corner of her eye.
“He’s laughing at the cost of these women? And then Andrea Constand’s in the courtroom? I’m furious,” Feden said. “No one in this courtroom is laughing. I understand that you’re a comedian, but this is not funny. This is not your stage. This is what you did wrong.”
Feden knew the stakes of the trial—the second in a three-year journey to convict Cosby on sexual assault charges. A previous trial, which had concluded before last year’s #MeToo movement shifted the national conversation around systemic sexual abuse, ended in a hung jury.
The prosecutor also admitted that, in the moments before the jury delivered its guilty verdict, she was “nervous for Andrea and for sex crime victims as a whole” at Cosby’s retrial.
“That was the most sickening part of this all,” Feden said. “When people in positions of power use that power to victimize people, I find that to be beyond disgusting.”
Both she and fellow prosecutor Stewart Ryan say they’re confident that Cosby’s conviction will stand.