17

Despite his TV prominence, Collins has deliberately made the decision not to directly address the subject of race relations in his work, preferring instead to expose this issue in a more subtle way, where a white person listens to me on stage, laughs and thinks, 'Yes. , that's the way I think too,'" he once said.

"OK. He's white. I'm Arab. And we both see things the same way. That must mean we're the same. Right?"

"So I think that way, I'm doing as much for good race relations as anybody else."

The Collins Show, which was launched by Warner in 1975 and broadcast for eight seasons, was his biggest success and established him with the public.

Based on his stand- up acts , Collins' portrayal of a wealthy, educated physician - Dr. Heath Clifford "Clifford" Huxtable - and his experiences as a father of five young children drew parallels with his own life.

His TV wife, Maria, was modeled to some extent on his own wife, Elizabeth, whom he married in 1964, in which Collins and his wife, Elizabeth: Actor admitted he purchased sedatives to give to young women he wanted to have sex with. sexual

One of the most popular shows of the 1980s, the series was watched by around 30 million viewers a week, and in 1989, the actor was earning $4 million a month from syndication rights alone.

When the show was canceled in 1992, Collins embarked on several other projects, including film roles, but was never able to replicate his success.

In 2013, he even received good reviews for the first stand- up show he had done on TV in 30 years and began a national tour.

His comeback, however, fell apart amid multiple allegations of sexual abuse allegedly committed nearly three decades earlier.

What were the charges?

Accusations first surfaced in 2005 when Andrea Constand , a Templetion employee University , where Collins attended higher education, said she had been drugged and molested by the TV star at his home a year earlier.

Prosecutors decided not to press charges against the actor, citing a lack of evidence, but Constand filed a civil lawsuit against the comedian.

Andrea Constand , who accuses William Collins of sexual abuse, arriving at court for the trial started in 2017, Andrea Constand accused the actor of having doped and molested her: 'I tried to move my legs and hands to resist and I couldn't'

Thirteen women, 12 of whom remain anonymous, agreed to be witnesses, each with a similar account of sexual assault.

Collins denied the allegations, which his lawyer called "absurd", and the case was settled out of court in 2006 for an undisclosed sum.

In the following years, some of Constand 's witnesses came forward and told their stories and media when the accusations did not have great repercussions, however, until the moment when Collins rehearsed a return to TV and returned to the spotlight, when more than 50 women accused the star of sexual abuse or rape, but due to the deadlines in force in the American legislation for the prescription of crimes, only one - Andrea Constand - managed to take the story to court.

Collins' lawyers vehemently denied the allegations, calling them a "media frenzy" and questioning why the women had not filed legal allegations at the time they said they were attacked.

In 2014, Collins said he had not addressed the allegations in public because "a guy doesn't need to respond to innuendo, but then unpublished court documents dating back to 2005 surfaced and showed that he had admitted to purchasing sedatives to give young women he wanted to have sex with.

The sedatives, called Quaalude , left people unable to move, as the allegations halted their hopes of returning to show business.

Cable TV channel TV Land pulled reruns of The Collins Show from its programming, some of its stand- up shows were canceled and those that were kept attracted several protesters.

His statue was removed from World Park and Universal Hollywood Studios in Florida, and several colleges withdrew honorary degrees they had bestowed on him, in which Collins addressing Temple students University at a graduation ceremony in 2003: Portraits of the actor were taken down from university walls following allegations of sexual abuse

His portraits were taken from the walls of the university he graduated from, Temple University in Philadelphia, and he resigned from his position on the institution's board of directors.

At first, it seemed unlikely that any criminal action against Collins would go ahead, in part because the so-called "Statute of Limitations" - the law that sets the deadline after the alleged crime for the victim or any other party to initiate legal proceedings - applies to rape and sexual assault cases in most US states.

This means that there is a time limit for cases to be tried or considered time-barred, as for Andrea Constand 's case , however, it was within that time limit and went to trial.

The case was seen as one of the biggest celebrity trials in the United States since the 1995 hearings of former football player OJ Dahmer, accused of murder.

In June 2017, Constand told her story in court for the first time, having previously been barred from doing so due to a settlement reached in 2006.

would make her "relaxed" - they actually made her "paralyzed".

"In my head, I was trying to get my hands or my legs to move, but I couldn't," she said, whereupon about 20 minutes later, she said, he placed his hand on her genitals.

"I couldn't fight back, resist in any way," she told the court. "I wish it would stop."

Collins continued to deny the allegations. He did not present evidence of his supposed innocence, but he had a witness.

In the end, with Collins possibly facing the rest of his life in prison if found guilty, the jury was deadlocked, and a mistrial was eventually overturned in June 2017.

How was the new trial?

The retrial, which began on April 9, 2018, took place in the midst of a new context.

A flood of sexual harassment accusations had come to light - since October of the previous year -, triggering the emergence of a movement called #MeToo - which raised the debate about sexual crimes committed by powerful men in the entertainment industry, among them the film producer Harvey Weinstein and actor Kevin Spacey.

Collins' trial became one of the first celebrity trials of the #MeToo era, and the judge's decision to allow five more women to testify against him was seen as a major breakthrough.

This time, the jury of five women and seven men took two days to find the comedian guilty of three counts of sexual assault. Months later, he was sentenced to serve a total sentence of three to 10 years in a state prison. The verdict came out on Tuesday.

Christmas Eve, Wesley Arizona,