Mr. Cosby’s supporters had hoped that a not-guilty verdict might tarnish the broader pool of accusations that had been leveled against him and stained his legacy. Several of the women have ongoing cases in which they have sued Mr. Cosby for slander after his representatives suggested that their accounts were fabrications.

Though the charges were based on a single incident involving one woman, the specter of the other allegations hung over the case from the start. Jurors conceded during jury selection that they were aware of the claims, and in his closing argument Mr. McMonagle had cited the “drumbeat” of highly publicized charges, saying that the case was more media frenzy than legal tribunal.

Mr. Steele had wanted to call a dozen other accusers as witnesses to demonstrate a pattern of behavior by Mr. Cosby, but Judge O’Neill allowed just one to testify — Kelly Johnson, who said that Mr. Cosby had drugged and assaulted her in 1996. Adding weight to the allegations was the revelation in 2015 that Mr. Cosby, in a 2005 lawsuit filed by Ms. Constand, had admitted securing quaaludes so women would have sex with him — an admission that was introduced last week.

Ms. Constand took the witness stand as a proxy for all of Mr. Cosby’s accusers, many of whom told stories similar to hers. None of the other women’s accusations have resulted in prosecution — in many cases, too much time has passed — leaving hers as the only formal test of Mr. Cosby’s guilt and, in the eyes of many of them, the only chance for justice.

The case turned largely on the credibility of Ms. Constand, a former Temple University employee, who testified that in a visit to the home of Mr. Cosby, a Temple trustee, he gave her three pills that he said were herbal. She said the pills left her immobile and drifting in and out of consciousness; he has said they were Benadryl.

“I was jolted awake and I felt Mr. Cosby’s hand groping my breasts under my shirt,” she testified. “I also felt his hand inside my vagina moving in and out, and I felt him take my hand and place it on his penis and move it back and forth.”