A judge has ruled that Bill Cosby is a "sexually violent predator".

The classification means that the 81-year-old TV actor will have to undergo lifetime counselling and report regularly to authorities.

His name will appear on a sex-offender registry which is sent to neighbours, schools and victims.

Montgomery County Judge Steven O'Neill made the decision as he prepares to sentence the comedian for drugging and molesting a woman at his Philadelphia home in 2004.

Prosecutors are asking for five to 10 years in prison.


The comedian's defence have requested house arrest, arguing Cosby is too old to do time behind bars and raising that he is legally blind.

Cosby's lawyers had fought the "sexually violent predator" ruling, arguing that Pennsylvania's sex-offender law is unconstitutional.

The judge said prosecutors had met their burden of proof by "clear and convincing" evidence.

Bill Cosby arriving at court for the start of a sentencing hearing.

Cosby was seen smiling and joking with his spokesman and sheriff's deputies as he settled into the courtroom on Tuesday before the ruling was given.

Cosby, previously known as "America's Dad" for his role in TV's The Cosby Show, was the first celebrity to go on trial following the #MeToo movement, and could be the first to go to prison.

When the ruling was announced, a woman in courtroom put her fist into the air and whispered, "Yessss!"

He was convicted in April of drugging and molesting Temple University employee Andrea Constand at his Philadelphia home in 2004.

More than 60 women have made similar allegations. None of those claims have led to criminal charges.

Image: Andrea Constand said the assault left her 'stuck in a holding pattern'

Ms Constand, 45, said in a statement released on Tuesday that she has had to cope with years of anxiety and self-doubt that have left her "stuck in a holding pattern".

She said her "life as I knew it" ended on the night that Cosby knocked her out with pills and violated her.

Constand said she now lives alone with her two dogs and has trouble trusting people.

"When the sexual assault happened, I was a young woman brimming with confidence and looking forward to a future bright with possibilities," she wrote in her five-page statement.

"Now, almost 15 years later, I'm a middle-aged woman who's been stuck in a holding pattern for most of her adult life, unable to heal fully or to move forward."

Cosby's first trial in 2017 ended in a mistrial when jurors could not reach a unanimous verdict.

Image: Cosby was known as 'America's Dad' in his heyday

Soon after, other women began accusing influential men of sexual misconduct, uniting behind the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements that encouraged victims to speak out.

The judge allowed prosecutors in Cosby's second trial to call five other accusers as witnesses.

All of the women relayed similar stories to Constand's - that Cosby would offer to be their mentor before plying them with alcohol and drugs and then sexually assaulting them.

A defence psychologist, Timothy Foley, testified that the chances of the comedian committing another sex offence are "extraordinarily low" because he is old, legally blind and needs help getting around.

A psychologist for the state testified that Cosby appears to have a mental disorder that gives him an uncontrollable urge to assault women.

The comic laughed at times as the psychologist gave this testimony.