Bill Cosby's lawyer falls asleep in court

Tom Mesereau, lawyer for actor and comedian Bill Cosby, arrives for Cosby's sexual assault trial at the Montgomery County Courthouse, Wednesday, April 25, 2018, in Norristown, Pa. (AP)

As rapt jurors listened to the judge overseeing Bill Cosby’s sex assault retrial read back prior testimony, the entertainer’s lead lawyer snoozed in his chair.

Tom Mesereau, mouth open, drifted in and out of consciousness Wednesday as Judge Steven O’Neill read pages and pages of Cosby’s own words about Quaaludes and his sexual contact with accuser Andrea Constand into the record.

Cosby, now 80, sat for the civil deposition over 2004 and 2005, in connection with a lawsuit Constand filed against him that would later be settled for $3.4 million.

Mesereau slept at the defense table for some 30 minutes, and awoke as the testimony from the deposition was still being read. His nap was not commented on by the judge or anyone in the courtroom.

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Jurors eventually called it quits for the night with no verdict, wrapping up their first day of deliberations into whether the comedian drugged and molested Constand on a couch in his Cheltenham, Pa., home in January 2004.

During the often explicit testimony, Cosby occasionally smiled. He spent much of the two-hour reading rubbing his eyes and face.

The panel of seven men and five women was sent home following more than 10 hours of deliberation, from 11:08 a.m. to just before 9:30 p.m. Wednesday.

Earlier in the day, jurors asked for a legal definition of “consent,” and to see differing statements from key defense witness Margo Jackson, who says Constand’s claims are false.

Both requests were denied, as there is no legal definition of the term “consent” in Pennsylvania, and the statements were not admitted as evidence.

The jurors, who have been sequestered since April 9, are expected to hear the entirety of Jackson’s testimony read back to them first thing Thursday.

Cosby’s first trial ended when another panel of jurors was unable to return a verdict.

The TV pioneer maintains that everything that occurred between him and the former Temple University staffer was consensual.

He faces three charges of aggravated indecent assault for the alleged sex attack. If convicted, Cosby could be sentenced to up to 10 years behind bars on each count.

This article originally appeared in the New York Post.