The frail 80-year-old once beloved as “America’s Dad” faces a sentence of up to 30 years for drugging and molesting Andrea Constand at his Philadelphia mansion in January 2004.
Judge Steven O’Neill said the sentence hearing would take place across two days starting at 9.30am local time in Norristown, Pennsylvania, where a unanimous jury returned a guilty verdict on April 26.
The 12-member sequestered panel found the comedian guilty on three counts of sexual assault on April 26 for drugging and molesting the former basketball player and Temple University employee 14 years ago.
Cosby, who is confined to his Philadelphia-area mansion on a US$1 million bail (RM4 million), has already been ordered to be fitted with a GPS monitor and to undergo a violent sexual predators’ assessment.
Prosecutors initially demanded his bail be revoked, arguing he was a flight risk, but an irritated O’Neill refused to “simply lock him up right now.”
His conviction ends the career of a once towering figure in late 20th century American popular culture, the first black actor to grace primetime US television, hitting the big time after growing up as the son of a maid.
Cosby’s lawyers have vowed to appeal.