Bill Cosby awoke Wednesday in a room drastically different from anything in his Philadelphia mansion — a stark, 9-by-12-foot cell inside a brand new maximum-security lockup located about 25 miles away.
The former puddin’ pop pitchman-turned-convicted felon spent his first night in State Correctional Institution Phoenix as inmate No. NN7687 after a short stint at county jail.
Cosby is being kept alone — in a single cell in a unit adjacent to the prison’s medical center.
“The ultimate goal would be to integrate him into general population,” Pennsylvania Department of Corrections spokeswoman Amy Wordon told The Post on Tuesday night. “He’ll be there on an entry basis as we determine what programs he’s eligible for.”
The 3,830-bed Collegeville prison opened July 9 and is a “state-of-the-art facility,” according to a write-up on the DOC website.
It features a non-denominational chapel, more than 30 classrooms for vocational and educational training, a barber shop, a law and a recreational library, a mural arts program and a gym.
Cosby can take classes in custodial maintenance, carpentry, restaurant services and warehouse operations and attend sex-offender treatment — which he’s been ordered to undergo.
He can also hone his skills at the laundry center, garment factory or shoe factory.
“Obviously we’d be taking into account an inmate’s physical condition, their mental condition. But most people want to make a little bit of money,” Wordon said about Cosby working. “It’s totally up to him.”
The prison also runs a tight ship. Breakfast is promptly at 7 a.m., lunch at 11 a.m. and dinner at 5 p.m.
“There are a lot of rules. Prisons operate under a really tight time deadline,” Wordon said of Cosby’s day. “There are four counts a day, and the inmates need to be in their cells at that time.”
Cosby will be holed up at SCI Phoenix for the short term before he’s transferred to a state prison, determined by the DOC, to serve out his three- to 10-year sentence on sex assault charges.
In court Tuesday, Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele floated the idea that the disgraced comedian — who is 81 and claims to be legally blind — could wind up at SCI Laurel Highlands in Somerset, Pa., more than four hours away from Philadelphia.
“The place is set up for a defendant that has medical issues,” Steele told Judge Steven O’Neill just before Cosby was sentenced for molesting Andrea Constand in 2004. “The defendant would be far from the oldest person in that facility, far from it.”
Disgraced Bill Cosby walks out of court handcuffed and headed to prison
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