Here’s How Bill Cosby Went From ‘America’s Dad’ To Inmate NN7687
Disgraced entertainer Bill Cosby was given Pennsylvania Department of Corrections inmate number NN7687 after being sentenced to 3 to 10 years in prison for sexual assault in Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas in Norristown, Pennsylvania, according to WPVI-TV.
The designation is a far cry from the “America’s Dad” moniker that he earned during his heyday as the creator and the star of The Cosby Show during the 1980s, one of the most popular sitcoms in television history, according to Britannica.com.
Cosby, 81, was sent to the SCI Phoenix prison facility in Collegeville, Pennsylvania on Tuesday after spending several hours in the county jail in the immediate aftermath of his sentencing, according to the television station. The prison facility opened just two months ago.
Tammy Ferguson is the superintendent of SCI Phoenix, which has 3,839 beds and is comprised of two correctional facilities featuring one shared administration/support building, according to the prison’s website.
The prison offers treatment, educational, vocational and recreational programs available to the inmate population, as well as numerous specialty units, the prison stated. Those include a secure residential treatment unit, residential treatment unit, a therapeutic community, a transitional housing unit, among others.
The classes offered in the prison include adult basic education, vocational, barbering, custodial maintenance, carpentry, restaurant professions serving staff and warehouse operations. It also has a law library, the prison’s website noted.
Montgomery County district attorney Kevin Steele told WPVI-TV that Cosby could be transferred eventually to SCI Laurel Highlands, a low-risk offenders’ prison about 70 miles southeast of Pittsburgh.
The television station stated that SCI Laurel Highlands caters to special needs inmates and has separate housing units for older offenders. WPVI-TV wrote that Cosby, 81, is legally blind and could fit the criteria.
SCI Laurel Highlands website stated that the prison serves offers services for “long-term care, personal care, wheelchair, dialysis, and geriatric inmates, as well as general population inmates.”
Inmate programs at SCI Lauren Highlands include classes for sex offenders, including those of “moderate-high intensity” and a “special needs sex offenders booster program.” It also offers classes for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), according to the website.
Montgomery County Common Pleas Judge Steven O’Neill sentenced Cosby after he was found guilty earlier this year for sexual assaulting Andrea Constand 14 years ago.
Cosby’s legal problems are hardly over. According to MassLive.com, he is due in federal court later this month in connection to civil charges filed by several women who claimed he sexually abused them.
The women — Barbara Bowman, Tamara Green, Angela Leslie, Katherine Mae McKee, Luisa Moritz, Kristina Ruehli, Therese Serignese, Joan Tarshis and Linda Traitz – had sued Cosby charging that the entertainer and his representatives defamed them by denying their stories once they went public with their allegations, MassLive.com wrote.
Those cases, though, were put on hold until after the criminal trial.
