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More than a month after a South Jersey father of two died after being stabbed during an apparent road rage incident along a snowy street, a man is facing charges for his killing.

A man with a sharp object pulled his Ford F-150 King ranch pickup truck in front of Joseph Pirri’s stopped car along Tanyard Road near the intersection of Mail Avenue in Deptford Township the afternoon of March 7, the Gloucester County Prosecutor’s Office said. The man then got out of his pickup and began stabbing Pirri in his face as he sat in the car, which was stopped in heavy snow.

Prosecutors call the attack unjustified.

Pirri, despite being gravely wounded, was able to give a description of the suspect and the large white pickup truck his attacker was driving, prosecutors said. The truck kept on driving, making its way south on Route 47 to Clayton before disappearing.

The 32-year-old victim died on March 15 at Cooper University Medical Center in Camden.

On Wednesday morning, Gloucester County officers, Monroe Township police and U.S. marshals tracked a pickup truck matching the description to a Williamstown, New Jersey gas station. They arrested the operator of the truck, Everett Moore Jr., of Clayton, on murder charges.

The pickup is registered to Moore’s wife, prosecutors said.

Moore, a 54-year-old construction worker, is being held in county jail ahead of a detention hearing on first-degree murder and weapons charges. It is unclear if he has an attorney who could comment on the case.

Two teenagers are fighting for their lives after they were stabbed at a SEPTA station in Center City Wednesday afternoon.

The two 17-year-old boys were on the eastbound platform of the 8th and Market Street station when they were attacked by two suspects, police said.

One teen was stabbed once in the neck, once in the stomach and once in the left arm. The second teen was stabbed once in the chest, once in the stomach and was cut on the wrist. The first teen was taken to Jefferson Hospital while the second teen was taken to Hahnemann Hospital.

Both teens are in critical condition.

Police are searching for a male and female suspect, both possibly in their teens.

SEPTA held an eastbound train that was stopped at the 2nd Street Station so that police could search. Police did not find the suspects on the train and it was released.

Eastbound trains are currently bypassing the 8th Street Station as police continue to investigate. Passengers should also expect residual delays on the Market Frankford Line.

This story is developing. Refresh page for updates.

The woman identified as the killer in a murder-suicide stemming from a love triangle that occurred in a tony Philadelphia suburb had some unusual items inside her car, police said Wednesday.

Latex gloves, ear plugs and binoculars were found by officers inside Jennair Gerardot's black Cadillac XTS, police in Radnor Township, Delaware County, said. The vehicle was a rental, investigators determined. 

Police believe Gerardot, of Delaware, drove to the Main Line town Monday night to shoot Meredith Sullivan Chapman. The victim had recently moved to Lowry's Lane for a new job at nearby Villanova University.

Chapman, 33, was found shot to death inside the house. Gerardot was found dead nearby after she apparently turned the gun on herself, police said.

The shocking slaying was rooted in an affair between Chapman and Gerardot's husband, Mark Gerardot, investigators have said.

"She broke into the house, she was lying in wait and she shot her as soon as she walked in and then she shot herself," Radnor Township Police Superintendent William Colarulo said Tuesday. "There were emails and text messages indicating what [Gerardot] planned to do."

Also inside the rented Cadillac was ammunition and a receipt from a nearby gas station that showed Gerardot had been in the area since at least 2:40 p.m. Monday, police said. The vehicle was found on an adjacent side street to Lowry's Lane. Gerardot had rented the vehicle April 13 in Wilmington, Delaware.

In a twist, Mark Gerardot had gone to a restaurant nearby the murder scene where he thought he'd be meeting Chapman for dinner. When she didn't show up, he went to her house and found the bodies. He then called police. 

Chapman had just moved into a three-story brick home on Lowry’s Lane with her dog Indy, friends told NBC10.

When investigators arrived at the scene, Gerardot’s husband, Mark Gerardot, told officials that his wife might be inside.

"You had a man that was married, that was having an affair with this other woman," Colarulo said. "The wife knew about it and this was a calculated, planned attack."

Neighbor Tom Dougherty was stunned by the news, telling NBC10 that "this is not what usually happens on this street.”

"Nothing ever happens on this street,” he said.

Chapman was a former WHYY producer for its Delaware bureau and ran an unsuccessful bid as a Republican for a state senate seat in Delaware. She was also married to Newark City Councilman Luke Chapman, but the couple was reportedly separated.

“Our hearts are broken by the devastating loss of our new colleague,” Villanova University officials said in a statement. “The thoughts and prayers of the entire university community are with her family, friends and colleagues during this extremely difficult time.”

Chapman's family called her a "beacon of light to anyone who was fortunate enough to meet her," in a released statement.

"She loved her family fiercely, was a compassionate friend and among the most talented and innovative professionals in her field," they wrote. "Her death was sudden and tragic, but will not definite who she was to the thousands of people who loved her."

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SUICIDE PREVENTION HELP: The National Suicide Prevention Hotline (1-800-273-8255) is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

It’s easy to get distracted by the razzle-dazzle of Meek Mill’s ongoing legal drama.

Grinning, the Philadelphia rapper triumphantly trotted out of prison Tuesday evening and hopped onto a private helicopter commissioned by bestie and 76er’s co-owner Michael Rubin. They flew high above Mill’s fans cheering outside the state prison in Chester en route to Philadelphia’s Wells Fargo Center. There, Mill rang the opening bell for game five of the NBA semifinals and sat next to Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf and Eagles’ owner Jeff Lurie. Funny guy Kevin Hart, who visited Mill earlier in the day, joined the motley crew for court-side photos.

But the Hollywood-style spectacle is eclipsing a larger trend in Philadelphia, which has the highest incarceration rate of America’s big cities. Mill is just one of hundreds of people whose prison sentences are being challenged after the names of 29 alleged corrupt police officers was revealed earlier this year.

Assistant public defender Bradley Bridge is overseeing all of those cases. Since March, three cases involving Mill's arresting officer, Reginald Graham, have been overturned with more than 100 waiting to be heard. And there are thousands more involving other corrupt cops, Bridge told NBC10.

An attempt to reach Graham for comment was not successful. 

The vast majority of those cases involve drug charges against black and brown people who might have been wrongfully convicted. 

"It’s a minority issue," he said. "That’s historically true. I've been doing this for 22 years and it’s always the same."

The same thing is happening in cities like Chicago and Baltimore, Bridge said. Last year, more than 21,000 drug convictions were thrown out after the state chemist admitted to falsifying evidence.

But What Does This Have to Do With Meek Mill?

At the center of Mill’s particular case is Graham, that now-retired cop who was included on a list of so-called corrupt officers released by the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office.

Graham was initially outed by his former partner, who told investigators that Graham lied about Mill pointing a gun at police officers when they first attempted to arrest the then 19-year-old in Southwest Philadelphia in 2007.

That statement triggered a flood of motions by Mill’s legal team under the Post Conviction Relief Act, which allows people serving sentences to challenge their convictions. His team also asked for Mill to be released on bail and for the presiding judge to recuse herself.

Common Pleas Judge Genece Brinkley denied every request even though other cases involving corrupt police were already being heard by a different judge.

“If there is a new trial, they will be able to flesh out issues of credibility that were not known previously,” Rhonda Hill Wilson, a Philadelphia personal injury attorney, told NBC10.

But in court last week, even after Assistant District Attorney Liam Riley signaled his office’s support for a new trial, Brinkley refused to set a new trial date and shut down the mention of bail.

Mill’s legal team bristled, telling NBC10 that there “is nothing else to think about” and expressing outrage over the rapper’s continued incarceration.

Mill took a softer tone.

“I am thankful that [three] people’s cases were dismissed ... after the DA took the exact position that he took in my case ... All these cases involved Reginald Graham and there are another 105 cases that just filed PCRAs with the same corrupt cop,” Mill said in a statement.

Despite evidence against Mill’s arresting officer, Brinkley scheduled a hearing for June. Initially, Mill would have remained imprisoned until then but his lawyers appealed to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court last week. On Tuesday, Mill won a major battle when that court called for his immediate release on bail. Brinkley signed the court order.

Meek Mill Broke the Law. Why is He Getting Special Treatment?

No one is claiming Mill is completely innocent. His arrest record is well known and well documented.

He was initially arrested in 2007 on drug and weapon violations. He went to jail and was released on parole in 2009 after serving six months. While on parole, he tested positive for drugs, left the city without permission, engaged in a fight in the St. Louis airport, and illegally operated an ATV on the streets of New York City.

But advocates and legal experts say Mill’s legal struggle is not about just one person. He is seen by some as a victim of mass incarceration and a symbol of the broken criminal justice system.

The 30-year-old also sees himself as a symbol:

“I’m just happy to be able to shed light on the [legal] situation we’ve been going through for years,” Mill said during a surprise phone call to a criminal justice reform panel held the University of Pennsylvania last month. “I’m the platform for other people to fight for their freedom.”

The #FreeMeek movement extended to Rev. Al Sharpton, who became one of the leading figures propelling Mill’s case into national fame.

Sharpton is among several celebrities who visited Mill in his Delaware County prison. Sharpton called the 30-year-old’s two- to four-year sentence for violating probation on a roughly decade-old gun and drug case a symbol of racial disparities.

“You’re not just talking about freeing Meek,” Sharpton said in March. “You’re talking about freeing the whole system.”

Now What?

Mill is currently out on bail. As of right now, he still has an evidentiary hearing set for June. His legal team is working overtime, however, to get Mill’s case out of Brinkley’s hands and into those of Judge Sheila Woods-Skipper, who is overseeing other cases involving tainted testimony from police officers.

As for Mill’s career, he told Nightly News that he would like to turn the #FreeMeek movement into a greater call for #JusticeReform.

A viewer's solar panels were not reducing her monthly electricity bill like she was promised. When she wasn't happy with the company's explanation, she called NBC10 Responds.

A federal judge has ruled that the government must keep the DACA program. Local DACA recipients are celebrating this as a small win in their fight to a permanent solution.

A car crashed through a parking garage wall and landed on its roof in Pottstown. The driver was not seriously hurt.

A family is looking for the Good Samaritan who saved their dog from drowning in the Delaware Bay.

Two black men who say they were racially profiled and ordered to leave an LA Fitness gym in Secaucus, New Jersey, earlier this month say they were humiliated when staff called police on them twice while they were working out. 

Rachid Maiga, 27, and Tshyrad Oates, 25, are breaking their silence about the April 15 confrontation, which went viral on social media, in an exclusive interview with the News 4 New York I-Team.

Maiga, a semi-pro basketball player, had been a club member for eight years, paying a premium for the Signature location and regularly driving out of his way to go to the gym for its prized basketball court. On that day, he was swiped in with no issues, and he waited for Oates, an account executive, who checked in separately with a four-day guest pass, he said. 

The two said they had been playing basketball for several minutes when the staffer who’d checked in Oates confronted them.

"She's telling me I'm not a member. She's not asking me. She's telling me I'm not a member," said Maiga, the longtime LA Fitness member. "I’m telling her that I AM a member, and she’s like, 'If you guys don’t get out of here, we’re going to call the police.'"

The friends refused to leave. "We have nothing to hide, we did nothing wrong," thought Maiga. 

Two Secaucus police officers arrived. Maiga went to his locker to get his membership badge and took it to the front desk to be rescanned. He says he decided to start recording with his cellphone because he knew he would not be given the benefit of the doubt -- that the automatic assumption would be that he was the one who did something wrong.

Oates later posted four videos which went viral on social media, fueled by the uproar over an incident three days before where two black men were arrested at a Starbucks in Philadelphia. Starbucks later apologized and announced all stores would close for bias training on May 29th.

"That first video is when my friend scanned," said Oates. "There should have been no more videos because we proved that we were members. We said, 'We’re going to go work out now,' and went back to working out. That should have been the end of the situation."

It wasn’t. The friends returned to the basketball court to resume working out. Shortly afterward, a male manager came storming onto the basketball court.

The manager told them, "'You guys need to go. You guys need to go, or else you're out of here in handcuffs,'" according to Maiga. 

"I'm telling him, 'I'm a member here, you can't just kick me out,' and that's when he tells me, 'Your membership is being terminated," said Maiga. 

Again, the men refused to leave. And again, police officers arrive -- this time, there were five of them. 

"They were peaceful with us, kind," Oates said of the officers. The officers told them, according to Oates, "'Listen, guys, I know we're here again talking to you guys, can we just pull you guys to the side?'"

Oates said, "At this point, now we're embarrassed, we're feeling harassed, and it's just getting out of hand. We're like, you know what, let's just all have this conversation with management."

Oates and Maiga said they felt like suspects as cops escorted them to the lobby.

"It was humiliating," said Maiga. "We’re sitting there and everyone in the gym is looking at us like, 'What’s going on?'"

When they all got to the front desk and started speaking with the male manager, the manager saw that he was being recorded and became upset, according to Maiga. 

"He was like, 'You can't record in here,' and he tried to make that the reason why they were terminating me," said Maiga. "Like, 'Now you definitely have to go because you're recording and breaking rules.'" 

"Even police asked him for an explanation, and he had nothing to tell police. None of them, not one of those members had something to tell police," he said.

The two friends left the gym and nursed their shock over the encounter into the next day. Ultimately, Oates decided to post the video.

"I'm not the type of person that likes to put my problems out there," said Maiga. "This has happened to me before, racial profiling. Like, I'm just already ready to bite the bullet. Then my friend put it online and I'm glad he did, because it brought awareness to it."

The video racked up 50,000 views overnight and has seen been since millions of times. The massive response revealed how deeply the encounter resonated with so many people, according to Oates and Maiga. 

Jill Greuling, a spokesperson for Fitness International, the parent company for LA Fitness, issued the following statement to News 4:

"For over 30 years, people of all races have been welcome in our clubs. We do ask for a Membership card or ID to gain entry. The front desk staff employee was confused and thought the member was a guest. He explained that he was a member, had checked in earlier, and did not want to retrieve his membership card a second time. The front desk employee who made the request was not working when this member checked in the first time, so she was unaware.

"Regrettably, from there our staff unnecessarily escalated the situation and called the police rather than work through it. Clearly, this is a long time member, with a current, valid membership. We want to clarify that no membership was cancelled and no one, including the member’s guest, was banned from the club. We have spoken to the member to apologize and assure him that he and his guests are welcome in our clubs at all times. I can confirm that the 3 employees most closely associated with this incident are no longer with the company."

Civil rights attorney William Wagstaff III, who represents the two men, said he doesn't think the apology is sincere.

"It was a hollow apology, a PR stunt. If that video had not gone viral, they wouldn't have apologized," he said.

Maiga said a woman at the corporate office of LA Fitness reached out to him to apologize, informing him that the three employees had been fired and offering three months of free membership. But Maiga said he won't be returning to the club.

"I don't feel welcome, no," he said. 

The I-Team reached one of the managers terminated as the result of the incident by phone. She denied there was any racial profiling and said one of the employees felt threatened by the two men, who refused to leave the basketball court. The manager said she believed the three employees were unfairly terminated.

Maiga and Oates say they hope the conversation sparked by the video, especially around race and entrenched bias, will continue in a meaningful and lasting way. 

"Racism is there, it's every day," said Oates. "And people try to say it's getting worse. The only difference is it's being recorded now." 

"I can't tell you how many times I've had to change my voice or try to act, like, super playful just to throw off the 'threatening' effect," said Maiga. "Black people all over the states, their understanding of the situation is nothing new." 

"I'm just tired of it. It happens all the time," he said. "And it's always brushed off like it's not gonna be such a big deal because not everybody understands it."  

Oates said, "Why does it keep happening? People are just so nervous to speak about race in America... If he didn't have those videos, we wouldn't even be here today, we wouldn't be talking about it. We would be just black people telling our story, complaining, pretty much, is what people see it as. And we're not complaining. We're here to fight for what's right."

"You can't just shut down your stores and try to tell everybody they need to go to a class on how to treat black people," said Maiga, referring to Starbucks' plan for racial bias training in the wake of the arrests of two black men in the Philadelphia store. "That's like going to college for one day and having an exam and thinking you're gonna pass. It's never gonna happen like that. That is not the solution. Do I have the soluton? I personally don't, but something needs to change."

Oates added, "We have to say something, continue to speak up, not be nervous to have this conversation. We want people to talk about it until they realize it’s wrong."

"We're two educated young males in America," he said. "We just happen to be black." 

The number of cases in the E. coli outbreak tied to Romaine lettuce grown in Arizona has boomed to 84 in 19 states, with 42 people requiring hospitalization, more than a half-dozen of them for a type of acute kidney failure, the Centers for Disease Control said Wednesday.

That's an increase of 31 people in 10 states just in the last week, when the CDC expanded its warning and told people to avoid all kinds of romaine lettuce that may have been grown in Yuma, Arizona. At first, the agency targeted chopped.

Investigators still haven't been able to determine the original source of the outbreak, which has now affected people in New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New York and a wide swath of the south and midwest. The most cases have been reported in Pennsylvania (18), followed by California (13) and Idaho (10). To date, New Jersey has seven cases, New York has two and Connecticut has two. No deaths have been reported.

Illnesses started on dates ranging from March 13 to April 12. Sick people range in age from 1 to 88, with a median age of 31. Most of the victims have been female. Nine of the 42 related hospitalizations were for hemolytic uremic syndrome, which can be a fatal form of kidney failure. 

Ninety six percent of 67 people interviewed in connection with the investigation reported eating romaine lettuce in the week before their illness started. Symptoms of E. coli infection include diarrhea, severe stomach cramps and vomiting. 

Drug trends among young people are evolving. In Montgomery County, Lower Gwynedd Police School Resource Officer Beth Sanborn, a mother herself, is offering tips for parents to help them spot the warning signs.

The days of zip-close baggies carrying drugs seem to be over, as police and school professionals are finding everyday items that have been transformed by teens to conceal drugs, alcohol and paraphernalia.

One Pennsylvania school resource officer has set out to alert parents of this new trend.

Lower Gwynedd Township Police Officer Beth Sanborn put together an interactive program that recently debuted at Wissahickon High School to show parents how drugs and other contraband can be hiding in plain sight.

"I'm not trying to make anyone paranoid," Sanborn said. "It's just that this is what's out there now."

Sanborn's program is a simulation of a teenage bedroom that includes more than 100 items such as soda cans, dental floss, hair brushes, deodorant and even Chapstick tubes that can be used to hide drugs.

These objects look and feel normal but can be opened to reveal hidden compartments for stashing drugs, alcohol or paraphernalia.

Some of the stash items have also been manipulated to mask the smell of drugs, and some are used not only to conceal drugs but to use them as well.

"I don't want you to be suspicious of every can of soda or bottle of water, but kids are getting sneaky," Sanborn said.

Police are even struggling to identify all items that teens have been using to conceal drugs.

The Kiwanis Club of Ambler and the Center for Humanistic Change in Allentown helped fund the mock bedroom program.

New research shows that deadly hit-and-run crashes are on the increase and experts are blaming distracted drivers and pedestrians.

Philadelphia police have captured a coyote after a two-hour chase.

The coyote was first spotted early Thursday in the city near Penn's Landing, along the Delaware River. Police and animal control officers eventually cornered and trapped it more than 2 miles away in South Philadelphia, under a large metal trash bin near a city school.

Officials will check on the animal's well-being. It eventually will be moved to a more suitable environment.

No injuries have been reported.

This marks the second time in a week that Philadelphia police have dealt with a coyote. Another one was safely captured on Monday.

One person died as fire tore through a Bucks County hotel that is used for apartments Thursday morning.

The blaze broke out around 9 a.m. at the Bush House Hotel along W Broad Street in Quakertown, Quakertown police said.

One person died and other victims refused treatment, Bucks County dispatchers.

Firefighters knocked out window of the stone façade on the east part of the building that runs along Front Street.

The blaze left 50 people in need of temporary housing, police said.

State and county fire marshals would be searching for a cause of the fire.

The next steps for Bill Cosby's case after hearing the guilty verdict against the comedian.

Bill Cosby has been found guilty on sexual assault charges in a case that destroyed the legacy of one of America's most influential comedians long before the verdict came down.

Cosby, 80, was originally charged in 2015. He was convicted on all three counts of aggravated assault related to an encounter with a former Temple University employee, Andrea Constand, in his Cheltenham home in Pennsylvania.

He was accused of drugging and molesting Constand in 2004. During the trial, five other women testified to also having been drugged and assaulted by Cosby.

The initial trial last year, also held at a courthouse in Norristown, Pennsylvania, garnered national attention. It ended in a mistrial after the jury deadlocked.

He now faces up to 10 years in prison on each count. A sentencing date has not been set. His attorneys said they will appeal the verdict.

Judge Steven O'Neill ordered Cosby to surrender his passport. Cosby will then be able to remain out on $1 million bail and stay at his home in Elkins Park until sentencing.

As the verdict was announced, some of his accusers let out joyous yells from the back of the courtroom. Constand remained poker-faced, as did Cosby. He briefly looked down to the floor, but otherwise had little reaction to the jury's reading of the guilty findings. 

Minutes later, however, Cosby lost his temper as District Attorney Kevin Steele argued that Cosby is a flight risk. In a short exchange that followed, Cosby called Steele a profanity.

Both trials, which lasted a few weeks each, became media spectacles and attracted large numbers of detractors, and some supporters, of the elderly celebrity. His case played out during the rise of the #MeToo movement. 

During jury selection for the retrial, most prospective jurors acknowledged they knew of #MeToo.

Kristen Houser of the National Sexual Violence Resource Center told the Associated Press that knowledge of the movement might change the way jurors in the first trial thought of the year it took for Constand to go to police with her accusations.

"The #MeToo movement is amplifying what experts have been saying for decades: People are ashamed, they're confused, they can't believe somebody they trust would hurt them, and then they worry that others won't believe them," Houser said at the start of the retrial.

Gloria Allred, an attorney representing 33 women who have accused Cosby of assaulting them, said the outcome has turned a hashtag into reality.

"We are so happy that finally we can say that women are believed and not only on hashtag MeToo, but in a court of law where they were under oath, where they testified truthfully, where they were attacked, where they were smeared, where they were denigrated, where there were attempts to discredit them," Allred said, standing with five accusers.

One of those women, Janice Baker-Kinney, said she and the other accusers are "so grateful" to the jury.

"We are vindicated, we are validated and we are now part of the tsunami of women's power and justice," Baker-Kinney said. "We are not shutting up and we're not going away. Get over it!"

Cosby's attorney, Tom Mesereau, said he is "very disappointed by the verdict."

"We don't think Mr. Cosby is guilty of anything," Mesereau said in a short statement.

The original trial and the subsequent retrial centered around a 2004 encounter between Cosby and Constand in the comedian's Cheltenham home.

In the second trial, five other women testified in addition to Constand. They also alleged during the trial that Cosby molested them as well.

One legal scholar predicted prior to the retrial that the second attempt could be tougher for Cosby's defense team.

"You've seen previews and coming attractions, but things have changed," Loyola Law School Professor Laurie Levenson told the Associated Press prior to the retrial. This time, Constand "is not alone, and there is strength in numbers."

Constand, the former director of operations for Temple University women’s basketball, took the stand earlier in the trial. She detailed how she met Cosby, how they became friends and occasional dinner mates and eventually how she was drugged and sexually assaulted at Cosby’s Elkins Park home. She said the incident took place in Jan. 2004.

Over the course of roughly 16 months in 2003 and 2004, Constand and Cosby spent several evenings together -- a mix of dinner parties with small groups and meet-ups at places like Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut.

Constand is a native of Canada now living in Toronto. She spent a little more than three years at Temple, where Cosby formerly served as a trustee and patron of the school’s basketball program. She is now a self-employed massage therapist.

Cosby settled a civil lawsuit with Constand years ago. Unlike at the first trial, jurors at the retrial were allowed to hear some details about the $3.4 million settlement between the two.

For years after the settlement a decade ago, the case was thought to be over. But in 2014, new attention to long-simmering allegations of Cosby’s use of quaaludes during encounters with women dating back to the 1960s re-emerged.

In the years since, some 50 women have come forward with accusations of sexual malfeasance by Cosby dating as far back as 40 years.

A different district attorney for Montgomery County, Risa Ferman, decided in 2015 to charge Cosby. After Ferman left the office to become a judge, her successor, Kevin Steele, pressed on with the case.

The Philadelphia native rose to stardom in the 1970s with his stage performances, and he became a household name for his portrayal of Dr. Cliff Huxtable on "The Cosby Show" in the 1980s.

Standing outside the courtroom where Bill Cosby was convicted of drugging and molesting a woman, Lili Bernard wept and asked a reporter to pinch her. She felt like she was dreaming.

Cosby’s conviction on Thursday was only for accusations made by one woman — Andrea Constand, whom a Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, jury found was sexually violated by Cosby at his home in 2014 — but Bernard and other accusers who were in the courtroom or watching around the country saw it as a major milestone in the burgeoning #MeToo movement.

"It's also a victory for all sexual assault survivors, female and male. It's a victory for womanhood," Bernard said. "I thank the jury so much for positioning themselves on the right side of history. I just want to hug them."

Bernard says Cosby drugged and raped her in the early 1990s. Dozens more women have accused Cosby of sexual misconduct and abuse over decades, going back to the era when he was a popular and powerful comedian. Cosby has denied the allegations, including the charges of aggravated indecent assault he was convicted of.

Many of Cosby's accusers have said that, for years, they felt unable to come forward with their stories and stayed silent because they wouldn't be believed. The #MeToo movement was aimed at ending that fear of speaking up, and it gained steam as Bill Cosby was first brought to trial in 2017. But the trial ended in a hung jury.

Bernard said Thursday that the mistrial left her with "a tremendous sense of disappointment," but Cosby's conviction on all three counts has redeemed her faith in humanity.

"What the #MeToo movement is saying is that women are worthy of being believed," Bernard said.

Renowned attorney and women's rights champion Gloria Allred, who represented dozens of Cosby's accusers, said Thursday's verdict made her happier than any other in her 42-year career.

"We are so happy that finally we can say that women are believed, and not only on #MeToo but in a court of law where they were under oath, where they testified truthfully, where they were attacked, where they were smeared, where they were denigrated, where there were attempts to discredit them," Allred said.

She was joined by Bernard and other of Cosby's accusers, many of whom sat through many days of the two-week retrial.

They cheered when Allred proclaimed, "Bill Cosby, three words for you: guilty, guilty, guilty!"

Victoria Valentino, who says Cosby sexually assaulted her in 1969, said she was grateful to the jury and insisted the #MeToo women is not going away: "We are now part of the tsunami of women's power and justice. We are not shutting up and we are not going away. Get over it."

The jurors all indicated they were aware of #MeToo but said before the trial they could remain impartial. Cosby's lawyers slammed #MeToo, calling Cosby its victim and likening it to a witch hunt or a lynching.

The verdict resonated for other major figures in the movement.

Its founder, Tarana Burke, tweeted about footage of Bernard and other women walking from the courtroom stunned and in tears after the verdict was read.

"This made my cry," Burke said.

Rose McGowan, who has accused disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein of rape, said she was "profoundly happy" to see Cosby's survivors crying tears of relief.

"Cosby is guilty. I’m sorry if you loved a lie. His victims can now exhale. Thank you judge and jury. Thank you society for waking up," McGowan tweeted.

Weinstein hasn't yet faced charges based on McGowan's accusations or the many others from women who have spoken out since the #MeToo movement began, and he has denied them, like Cosby did. But police departments in New York, Los Angeles and elsewhere have confirmed they are investigating allegations, which could lead to the next big celebrity trial of the #MeToo era.

Liz Lane and The Associated Press contributed to this report.