The joke from comedian Hannibal Buress that set off the firestorm that brought down ‘America’s Dad’ Bill Cosby

IT is ironic that Bill Cosby may have finally faced retribution for his sick sex crimes because of a joke.

Allegations had swirled around the funnyman for years when stand-up comic Hannibal Buress took to the stage at a Philadelphia nightclub in October 2014.

During the gig, a Cosby joke which Buress had been telling for six months was captured on a camera-phone by a punter and spread across social media like wildfire.

Commenting on Cosby’s love of moralising, which had included a lecture tour, Buress told the audience: “He gets on TV, ‘Pull your pants up black people, I was on TV in the Eighties! I can talk down to you because I had a successful sitcom!’

“Yeah, you rape women, Bill Cosby, so turn the crazy down a couple notches.”

When the crowd — in Cosby’s home town — met the punchline with a quizzical reaction Buress, then 32, added: “When you leave here, Google ‘Bill Cosby rape’.

“That s*** has more results than ‘Hannibal Buress’.”

After the joke went viral, it provoked a firestorm of comment and dozens of women came forward accusing The Cosby Show star of drugging and assaulting them.

The publicity also drew wide attention to a civil lawsuit by one of his victims, Andrea Constand, which had been settled in 2006.

And it led to media outlets making a bid for documents in that civil case to be unsealed — which a judge agreed to do because Cosby had set himself up as a “public moralist”.

In these papers, Cosby admitted to buying sedatives for the purpose of drugging and having sex with young women.

Prosecutors moved into action to file charges and on Thursday the 80- year-old was convicted of drugging and sexually assaulting university worker Andrea, now 45, at his home in Pennsylvania in 2004. He faces up to ten years in prison.

The verdict in the retrial comes ten months after a jury was deadlocked on deciding his guilt.

Cosby accusers say the outcome of the two trials is no coincidence — one before and one after the sweeping #MeToo movement, which saw the downfall of Hollywood perverts.

Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey and Brit actor Ed Westwick were named by women after the Weinstein scandal broke in October last year. All denied wrongdoing.

This month, Lise-Lotte Lublin was one of five women granted permission to give testimony on her own Cosby horror during his trial in Norristown, Pennsylvania.

That was despite Cosby not facing any criminal charges in connection with the five — which also included ex-I’m A Celebrity star Janice Dickinson — because in their cases the statute of limitations had run out.

Aspiring actress Lise-Lotte was 23 in 1989 when she alleged he slipped drugs in her drink before sexually assaulting her in the Elvis suite of the Las Vegas Hilton.

The married mum-of-two, now 51, speaking exclusively to The Sun from her Las Vegas home, said: “I definitely think the #MeToo movement was a contributing factor to this trial.

“Before, it was like, ‘What do we have to do to get you to hear us?’

“People are listening to the victims of sexual assault.

“That is in part because people in the movement said, ‘We are going to stand behind these women and let people know we have been in their shoes’.”

Her lawyer Gloria Allred, who represents 33 women to make allegations against Cosby, agreed and said: “We are so happy that finally we can say, ‘Women are believed’.”

The 17-day Cosby retrial allowed the mask to slip from an entertainer once lauded as “America’s dad”.

He was the first African-American man to win a Primetime Emmy Award, in 1968 for TV series I Spy, before starring as doctor and ultimate family man Cliff Huxtable in The Cosby Show from 1984 to 1992.

It was a hit on both sides of the Atlantic, pulling in up to six million viewers in Britain on Channel Four.

In 1987 Forbes magazine estimated Cosby was the highest paid entertainer in the world, having made around £72million that year alone.

It gave him a £290million fortune, mansions in LA, New York, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, Rolexes and a fleet of motors including a £3.6million AC Cobra sports car.

The dad of five, who wed wife Camille, now 74, in 1964, also recorded ads for Coca-Cola and Ford, playing on his wholesome image.

It was the perfect smokescreen for a sexual predator. An avalanche of 62 accusers came forward to claim he abused them following Buress’s viral rape joke.

During Cosby’s trial, Andrea and the five other women, described as witnesses to “prior bad acts”, detailed how he drugged and raped them.

Supermodel Janice Dickinson, now 63, was flown out to Lake Tahoe, Nevada, to meet him in 1982 and handed a blue pill when she said she had cramps.

She began to feel giddy before he allegedly got on top of her. Janice said: “He smelled like cigars and espresso and his body odour. I felt like I was rendered motionless.

“Here was ‘America’s dad’ on top of me — a happily married man with five children and I felt how very wrong it was. I passed out after he entered me. It was gross.”

Similar testimony came from Heidi Thomas, who was 24 when she went to a meeting with him in Nevada.

He offered her a sip of a drink — and the next four days are a blur apart from snapshot memories such as this one: “He was forcing himself into me. And I remember thinking I felt sick and, ‘How did I get here?’” Of another flashback, she said: “I heard his voice. He always referred to himself in the third person or as ‘Mr C’ or ‘your friend’.

“And I’m thinking, ‘This isn’t what I’m here for’.”

Sportswoman Andrea Constand met Cosby while managing the women’s basketball team at Philadelphia Temple University, where Cosby had studied. She was 29.

The comedian would invite her to his nearby home for grandfatherly-like advice. But on one visit in January 2004 he gave her three blue pills at his home which put her to sleep.

She said: “I was kind of jolted awake and felt Mr Cosby on the couch beside me and being penetrated quite forcefully.

“I felt my breasts being touched and he took my hand and pleasured himself with my hand. I was not able to do a thing to fight back.
“I felt his fingers going inside of me, going in and out, very forcefully. My next memory was getting up off the couch, seeing my bra was up around my neck and my pants were kind of half unzipped.”

In court, Cosby said he had given her the antihistamine Benadryl to help her relax and said sex acts were consensual.

He later said in his civil court case deposition that in the morning he made her a hot drink in what he called his “cappuccino room” before walking her to the door, and did not think she was upset.

Cosby recalled: “She doesn’t walk out with an attitude of a huff, because I think that I’m a pretty decent reader of people and their emotions in these romantic sexual things.”

Andrea’s lawyer noted: “Despite his talent for interpreting female reactions to him, he did not realise the plaintiff was gay until the police told him.” On Thursday, after 14 hours of deliberation, the jury reached a unanimous guilty verdict on the three counts of aggravated indecent assault.

Cosby accusers in the courtroom broke down in floods of tears.

But teacher Lise-Lotte told The Sun of her reaction: “I’m bouncing through happiness and victory.

“To see him held responsible for what he did is a beautiful thing.”

Hollywood immediately saw it as a watershed for the #MeToo moment.

Actress Rose McGowan, 44, one of more than 100 Harvey Weinstein accusers, tweeted: “Cosby is guilty. I’m sorry if you loved a lie. His victims can now exhale. Thank you judge and jury.”

And while Cosby’s lawyers say they will appeal, campaigners are looking for the next #MeToo prosecution.

Two & A Half Men actress Amber Tamblyn, 34, tweeted: “You’re next, Harvey. We’re coming for you. All of you. #TimesUp.”