Breaking: Jury Reaches Decision in Bill Cosby Sexual Assault Case
Bill Cosby was convicted Tuesday in a civil trial in which he was accused of assaulting a 16-year-old girl in 1975.
The accuser, Judy Huth, was awarded $500,000 in damages, according to The New York Times.
According to The Associated Press, the jurors decided that Cosby “intentionally caused harmful sexual contact with Huth, that he reasonably believed she was under 18, and that his conduct was driven by unnatural or abnormal sexual interest in a minor.”
Huth sued Cosby in 2014 for sexual battery, Deadline reported. She claims he assaulted her at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles when she was 16.
Huth and a friend, Donna Samuelson, testified that they were invited by Cosby to his tennis club and later to a house where he was staying, where they drank alcohol. He then had them follow him in their car to the Playboy Mansion, they said.
“Are you girls ready for your surprise?” Cosby said, according to Huth. “I had no clue what it could be,” Huth testified.
She said she went to a bathroom and came out to find Cosby waiting for her on a bed.
“He patted the seat next to him,” she said. “I sat down. He tried to lean me back, he tried to kiss me, he tried to put his hands underneath my belly button where my high-waisted pants were.”
Huth, 64, said Cosby forced her to perform a sex act.
Cosby, 84, denied the claims.
His lawyers admitted he met Huth but called her accusations “a complete and utter fabrication” and alleged that Huth and Samuelson made up the story for financial gain, The New York Times reported.
Cosby’s attorneys said he met Huth later than she claimed, which would mean she was not a minor at the time of their encounter.
That was important because Huth was able to sue Cosby under a California law that gives an accuser who claims to have been abused as a minor extra time to sue.
Cosby’s lawyers also noted that Huth remained at the Playboy Mansion for hours after the alleged assault.
In 2018, Cosby was sentenced to prison after being found guilty of rape. Three years later, that conviction was tossed out.
Over 60 women have claimed that Cosby drugged and then assaulted them.
According to Deadline, Huth’s lawsuit was the first civil case on sex crime allegations against Cosby to make it to trial.
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