AUTUMN OF HIS LIFE?

By Jill Smolowe

The morality play under way in room 1306 of the old white marble federal courthouse in New York City is a three-hankie affair. On the prosecution side is Bill Cosby, battling an attack on his reputation as America's Dearest Dad. At the defense table sits Autumn Jackson, 22, the woman who is charged with trying to extort $40 million from Cosby in exchange for not publicizing a story that could brand Cosby Deadbeat Daddy Dearest. The tug of sympathies is palpable. Does one side with Cosby, a man who has achieved heroic stature since the tragic shooting of his only son last January? Or does one go with the destitute young woman who claims that all she ever wanted was "one hug and one kiss" from Cosby, the man who she insists is her father?

This is a melodrama that seems to have everything, save a compelling reason to be tying up space on a federal-court docket crowded with far more serious cases. As Jackson's indictment makes clear, no violence was threatened, no extorted money changed hands. As for any injury Cosby's reputation may have suffered from the press attention that attended Jackson's arrest last January, the actor inflicted far more damage on himself when he subsequently admitted in an interview with Dan Rather not only that he had a "rendezvous" with Jackson's mother more than 20 years ago but also that paternity of Jackson was "a possibility." His lawyer confirms he helped support her while she was in school. Why, then, is Jackson on trial? "Prosecutors have a hard time resisting the temptation to be in the headlines," says Gerard Lynch, a former federal prosecutor.

To be sure, inquiring minds demand to know: Is Bill really Autumn's dad? After public money and Jackson's 15 minutes of fame have been spent, the mystery may well remain unsolved. Before jury selection began last Monday, Judge Barbara Jones ruled that the question of Cosby's paternity was legally irrelevant and shot down a defense request that Cosby undergo a paternity test. The defense would also like to present the results of a polygraph test, taken and passed by Jackson on July 6, in which she answered yes to the questions, "Is Bill Cosby your father?" and "Is your father Bill Cosby?" But polygraph results are inadmissible in federal court.

That leaves the two sides to wrangle over the issue of Jackson's intent. No one disputes that during a three-week period last January, Jackson and two male co-defendants mailed letters and placed phone calls to Cosby, his representatives and employers, stating that Jackson might sell her "story of desperation" to the tabloid Globe if Cosby declined to reach a "fair settlement" with her. For prosecutor Paul Engelmayer, the issue is clear-cut: "The...threat was simple: your money or your reputation."

Jackson's attorney, Robert M. Baum, hopes to convince jurors that Jackson fervently believes Cosby is her father; that as a result of her belief, she "felt that she possessed certain legal and moral rights"; and that her petitions for money were a "negotiation," not an extortion. To buttress these claims, Baum's opening statement walked the jury through a lengthy history of contacts between Cosby and both Jackson and her mother, Shawn Thompson. Baum said it was Cosby who suggested Thompson list her former boyfriend, Gerald Jackson, as the father on Autumn's birth certificate. (Cosby's attorney denies the allegation.) Baum traced years of "gifts" bestowed by Cosby, including trust funds and cars for both women and a front-row seat for Jackson at the 1991 taping of the final episode of The Cosby Show. Only after Jackson and her mother fought last December and Jackson began living in her car did Jackson call Cosby. "This is a woman who believes she's his daughter, calling her father for help," Baum told TIME.

The verdict may hinge, in effect, on which of two tapes the six male and six female jurors find more compelling: an audiotape of a phone message left by Jackson for Peter Lund, the former CEO of CBS, stating she is Cosby's daughter and wants to discuss "how this will affect CBS if I go to any tabloids," or a videotape of the backstage party that followed that final shoot of The Cosby Show, showing Cosby with his arm draped around Jackson. "However much Mr. Cosby is beloved by the universe," says Lynch, "if this young woman has some reasonable basis for believing he is her father, then she becomes in my mind, and I would think for most jurors, a fairly sympathetic figure." Though law professor Stephen Gillers of New York University doubts the defense arguments will prevail, he predicts, "They will tarnish Cosby's reputation in the larger moral arena." Even if Jackson loses in the court of law, she may triumph in the court of public opinion.

--Reported by Andrea Sachs/New York

With reporting by Andrea Sachs/New York