Bill Cosby Found Liable in California Trial for Sexually Assaulting Teenager in 1975

Bill Cosby Arrives at Court (Credit: YouTube)

Bill Cosby was found liable on Tuesday in Santa Monica, California for sexually assaulting Judy Huth at the Playboy Mansion when she was a teenager in the 1970s.

Jurors in the civil case awarded Huth, now 64, with $500,000 in damages, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Huth’s legal team, led by Gloria Allred, argued that Cosby gave the teen alcohol and took her to the Playboy Mansion in 1975. Huth accused Cosby of putting his hand down her pants, fondling her and forcing her to perform a sex act in the game room of the mansion. At the time, Huth was 16 years old.

The comedian’s legal team denied any wrongdoing and said Huth stayed at the mansion several hours after the alleged assault. They also said she originally claimed the attack happened in 1974 when she was 15, then changed her story to say the alleged assault occurred a year later.

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The jury began deliberating last Thursday, and said Friday it had reached a verdict on some of the issues in the case. But the judge dismissed jurors for the weekend. When the jury returned on Monday, they started the deliberations from scratch.

The verdict came after a nearly three-week trial in the Los Angeles suburb. Cosby did not attend the trial.

Cosby was convicted in a 2018 Pennsylvania retrial for drugging and sexually assaulting former Temple University employee Andrea Constand in 2004. He received a sentence of three to 10 years in state prison, but was released in 2021 when the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned his conviction.

The court said prosecutors committed misconduct when they tried the case. In its decision Pennsylvania’s high court ruled a “non-prosecution agreement” struck between Cosby and former Montgomery County Dist. Atty. Bruce Castor years earlier meant the comedian should have never been charged in the case.

Over the years The Cosby Show star has been accused by dozens of women of sexual assault.