NORRISTOWN, Pa. (Reuters) - The jurors in Bill Cosby’s sexual assault trial concluded their fourth day of deliberation on Thursday, unable to reach a unanimous verdict on the three charges against the entertainer. 
 
 Judge Steven O’Neill in Norristown, Pennsylvania, sent the jurors, many of whom looked exhausted, back to their hotel a few minutes after 9 p.m. on Thursday after praising them for their efforts. 
 
 The jury has completed about 40 hours of deliberations, including three consecutive 12-hour days, without reaching an unanimous verdict and will return on Friday. 
 
 O’Neill had instructed the jurors to continue trying to deliver a verdict around 11:30 a.m., following a note in which they said they could not agree on a verdict on three counts of aggravated indecent assault. 
 
 Cosby, 79, once beloved for his brand of family-friendly comedy, is accused of drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand, then 31, at his home near Philadelphia in 2004. 
 
 Constand and other accusers say Cosby, the star of the 1980s hit TV comedy “The Cosby Show,” often plied them with pills and alcohol before assaulting them in a series of incidents over four decades. 
 
 Constand’s allegations are the only ones to result in criminal charges, with many of the others too old to allow for prosecution. Cosby has denied every claim, saying his encounters with Constand and others were consensual. 
 
 A hung jury would represent a clear victory for Cosby, who would avoid what could have been years in prison. Prosecutors would have the option of seeking a retrial if the jury cannot reach a verdict. 
 
 Following the jury’s morning note, one of Cosby’s accusers, Jewel Allison, began crying. Soon after, Cosby protesters and supporters faced off in verbal confrontations outside the courthouse. 
 
 O’Neill rejected a motion from Cosby’s lawyers for a mistrial on Thursday morning. The judge and the lawyers met in private just before 9 p.m. outside the presence of reporters gathered in the courtroom, so it was unclear whether defense lawyers renewed their request. 
 
 The jurors have spent days wrestling with which version of the night in question was accurate: Constand’s or Cosby’s. They have spent days asking to have testimony read back, including Constand’s trial testimony as well as the first report she made to police in 2005. 
 
 The jury also revisited Cosby’s description of the night from sworn depositions he gave in 2005 and 2006 during a civil lawsuit by Constand and a police interview he conducted in 2005. Cosby did not testify. 
 
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 Defense lawyers during the trial emphasized discrepancies in Constand’s statements to police in 2005 in an effort to undermine her credibility. 
 
 Prosecutors, meanwhile, used her testimony as well as the words of a second accuser, Kelly Johnson, to portray Cosby as a serial predator. Johnson told jurors Cosby sexually assaulted her in strikingly similar fashion in 1996. 
 
 In his decade-old depositions, Cosby said he gave Constand Benadryl, a common allergy drug whose side effects can include drowsiness. He called the pills her “friends” without telling her what they were, and admitted to giving other young women Quaaludes, a sedative, in the 1970s. ||||| Bill Cosby arrives at the Montgomery County Courthouse during his sexual assault trial, Thursday, June 15, 2017, in Norristown, Pa. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum) (Associated Press) 
 
 NORRISTOWN, Pa. (AP) — Jurors in Bill Cosby's sexual assault trial told a judge Thursday they're deadlocked on charges the comedian drugged and molested a woman in 2004, but the judge told them to keep trying to reach a unanimous decision. 
 
 The panel deliberated about 30 hours over four days before telling Judge Steven O'Neill they couldn't reach a verdict on any of the three counts against the 79-year-old comedian. 
 
 The judge sent them back to the jury room to keep talking. 
 
 As deliberations dragged into a fourth day, some jurors have appeared angry and frustrated. 
 
 The sequestered jury has been working late into the night since getting the case Monday, pausing a half-dozen times to revisit key evidence, including Cosby's decade-old admissions that he fondled Andrea Constand after giving her pills. 
 
 O'Neill has seemed vexed at times as the court staff struggled to answer the jury's requests during deliberations. One batch of requested testimony hadn't even been transcribed yet. 
 
 But when jurors asked to stop for the day Wednesday night, O'Neill was effusive with praise — encouraging their diligence as they weigh charges that could put Cosby in prison for the rest of his life. 
 
 "This is an incredible jury that has just acted with incredible dignity and fidelity," O'Neill said. "I don't have any higher praise. You have taken your task so seriously." 
 
 Cosby is charged with three counts of aggravated indecent assault. Each carries a maximum 10-year prison term, though the counts could be merged at sentencing if he is convicted. 
 
 The case has already helped demolish his nice-guy reputation as America's Dad. 
 
 Cosby has wavered between stoic and smiling as he awaits his fate, but gave a brief thumbs-up as jurors listened to a court reporter reread his January 2005 police interview. 
 
 In it, he claimed Constand showed no ill effects from the 1 1/2 Benadryl pills he gave her to help her relax, and that she never objected to his behavior during the 2004 encounter at his suburban Philadelphia home. 
 
 Constand testified last week that she was paralyzed by the pills and unable to fight Cosby off. Her mother, Gianna Constand, pulled a cloth from her pocket to wipe away tears Wednesday as she listened to the testimony. 
 
 Cosby's lawyers maintain Constand was a willing sexual partner. 
 
 Some jurors closed their eyes and tilted their heads down as they listened to the police interview. One slunk down in his seat, looking angry. 
 
 "Can you find 12 people who will agree? That's the question," said criminal lawyer Alan J. Tauber, who wasn't involved in the case. 
 
 The Associated Press does not typically identify people who say they are victims of sexual assault unless they grant permission, which Constand has done. 
 
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 For more on Cosby, including trial updates, historical photos, videos and an audio series exploring the case, visit http://www.apnews.com/tag/CosbyonTrial.
– The jury in Bill Cosby's sexual assault trial is deadlocked, the AP reports. After 30 hours of deliberation over four days, jurors told Judge Steven O'Neill they could not reach a unanimous verdict on any of the three counts of aggravated indecent assault. O'Neill instructed them to keep trying and sent them back to the jury room, where they have been working late into the night while sequestered. Reuters reports they worked 12-hour days Tuesday and Wednesday since getting the case late Monday. Upon hearing the jury's note to the judge, Cosby's lawyers requested a mistrial, but O'Neill said that request was premature. Jurors have requested to revisit key evidence multiple times, which at times has seemed to "vex" O'Neill, per the AP (one batch of testimony jurors wanted to review had not been transcribed yet, for example), but on Wednesday he praised the jury for having "taken your task so seriously." The jurors, too, have seemed "angry and frustrated" at times over the course of deliberations, per the AP. According to BuzzFeed, Cosby "grinned" as the judge read the jury's note and announced jurors were deadlocked. At least one of Cosby's other accusers cried after the note was read.