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Bill Cosby has been found guilty of sexually abusing a 16-year-old girl at the Playboy Mansion in 1975.
A Los Angeles County jury delivered the verdict in favor of Judy Huth, who is now 64, and awarded her $500,000 on Tuesday.
Jurors determined 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.
The jurors’ decision is a major legal defeat for the 84-year-old entertainer once hailed as America’s dad. It comes nearly a year after his Pennsylvania criminal conviction for sexual assault was thrown out and he was freed from prison.
Huth’s lawsuit was one of the last remaining legal claims against him after his insurer settled many others against his will.
Cosby did not attend the trial or testify in person, but short clips from 2015 video deposition were played for jurors, in which he denied any sexual contact with Huth. He continues to deny the allegation through his attorney and publicist.
Bill Cosby was found guilty of sexually abusing a 16-year-old girl at the Playboy Mansion in 1975. The Los Angeles County jury delivered the verdict in favor of Judy Huth, who is now 64, and awarded her $500,000 on Tuesday
Cosby met Huth and her high school friend on a Southern California film set in April of 1975, then took them to the Playboy Mansion a few days later.
Huth’s friend Donna Samuelson, a key witness, took photos at the mansion of Huth and Cosby, which loomed large at the trial.
Huth testified that in a bedroom adjacent to a game room where the three had been hanging out, Cosby attempted to put his hand down her pants, then exposed himself and forced her to perform a sex act.
Jurors had already reached conclusions on nearly every question on their verdict form, including whether Cosby abused Huth and whether she deserved damages, after two days of deliberations on Friday.
But the jury foreperson could not serve further because of a personal commitment, and the panel had to start deliberating from scratch with an alternate juror on Monday.
Huth filed her lawsuit in 2014, saying that her son turning 15 – the age she initially remembered being when she went to the mansion – and a wave of other women accusing Cosby of similar acts brought fresh trauma over what she had been through as a teenager.
Cosby met Huth and her high school friend on a Southern California film set in April of 1975, then took them to the Playboy Mansion a few days later. The mansion is pictured in 2004
Huth’s attorney Nathan Goldberg told the jury of nine women and three men during closing arguments Wednesday that ‘my client deserves to have Mr. Cosby held accountable for what he did.’
‘Each of you knows in your heart that Mr. Cosby sexually assaulted Miss Huth,’ Goldberg said.
A majority of jurors apparently agreed, giving Huth a victory in a suit that took eight years and overcame many hurdles just to get to trial.
During their testimony, Cosby attorney Jennifer Bonjean consistently challenged Huth and Samuelson over errors in detail in their stories, and a similarity in the accounts that the lawyer said represented coordination between the two women.
This included the women saying in pre-trial depositions and police interviews that Samuelson had played Donkey Kong that day, a game not released until six years later.
Bonjean made much of this, in what both sides came to call the ‘Donkey Kong defense.’
Goldberg asked jurors to look past the small errors in detail that he said were inevitable in stories that were 45 years old, and focus on the major issues behind the allegations. He pointed out to jurors that Samuelson said ‘games like Donkey Kong’ when she first mentioned it in her deposition.
The Cosby lawyer began her closing arguments by saying, ‘It’s on like Donkey Kong,’ and finished by declaring, ‘game over.’
Huth’s attorney reacted with outrage during his rebuttal.
‘This is about justice!’ he shouted, pounding on the podium. ‘We don’t need game over! We need justice!’
Jurors determined 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
During her testimony, Huth told the court that Cosby tried to put his hand down her tight pants, exposed himself, and then forced her to touch him sexually on a bed in a ‘blue room,’ which she says was adjacent to the game room.
‘He forced himself on me,’ recalled Huth. ‘I was shocked to say the least,’ she said. Cosby denies her allegations.
She said the incident happened after she and Samuelson accompanied Cosby on a visit to the Playboy Mansion.
She said he gave them a tour of the mansion and game room before they played some games including Donkey Kong, and she went to the restroom. The now-64-year-old then said Cosby then forced her to perform a sex act in the bedroom.
Huth also alleged that Cosby kept pursuing her after she told him that she was ’15 or 16′ years old.
She claimed to have told Cosby that she was on her menstrual cycle – even though she was not – in hopes that he would stop.
‘I was trying to deflect,’ she said. ‘But he didn’t stop. I just closed my eyes… It was so fast. Maybe five minutes. Quick.’
Afterwards, Huth said Cosby walked out the room before she ultimately followed him to the grotto area of the mansion, where both took a photo which was shown in court. As Huth looked at the photo, she said felt ‘mad, duped and foolish.’
‘I felt let down. I was hurt,’ she said.
The photo, which was shown to jurors several times, has Cosby wearing a red beanie and smiling next to the teenage Huth.
Huth told the court that Cosby tried to put his hand down her tight pants, exposed himself, and then forced her to touch him sexually on a bed. She is pictured at Santa Monica Courthouse on June 1, 2022
During cross examination, Cosby’s attorney Jennifer Bonjean accused Huth of being a liar several times for delivering two versions of her story
During cross examination, Cosby’s attorney Bonjean accused Huth of being a liar several times for delivering two versions of her story.
The initial lawsuit filed in 2014 alleged that the incident took place in late 1973 or 1974, when Huth was 15 and Samuelson 16.
A few weeks before the trial began, Huth and her attorneys said that further investigation of the evidence allowed them to determine that it actually happened in the spring of 1975, when Huth was 16 and Samuelson 17.
Bonjean accused Huth of comparing stories with Samuelson before she spoke with the Los Angeles Police Department in 2016. Huth refuted Bonjean’s claim.
‘You lied about the date, the year this happened and your age,’ Bonjean said.
Huth said she wanted to leave the mansion. However, she said she elected to stay because there was no other transportation out of Samuelson, who drove and wasn’t ready to leave.
She added that the incident with Cosby was still on her mind. But since Cosby left for an event and both stayed, they changed into their swimsuits and took a swim before playing backgammon with a couple women.
She says one of the women wearing a purple robe was accompanied by actor Peter Lawford. Bonjean said that’s when Huth lied about her age to the women, telling them she was 19.
‘You misrepresented your age,’ Cosby’s attorney said. Bonjean said Huth is now telling her side of the story because of monetary reasons.
But Huth refuted that theory, saying she didn’t tell anyone – including her father – about the alleged sexual abuse for years until she saw other women step forward with their story and her son’s 15th birthday, which she says ‘triggered’ her.
‘I went back to being irritable,’ she said. ‘I went back to blaming myself. I became a loner.’
Cosby, who did not attend the trial due to his ongoing battle with glaucoma, has denied sexually assaulting Huth. He is pictured in September 2018
Cosby, who did not attend the trial due to his ongoing battle with glaucoma, has denied sexually assaulting Huth. The jury was presented parts of a video deposition he gave shortly after the 2014 lawsuit.
The video revealed that when asked whether he had tried to put his hand down Huth’s pants, Cosby quickly and clearly answered ‘no’.
When asked if he exposed himself and forced her to touch him sexually, Cosby answered ‘no’ in the same way.
He also answered ‘no’ when asked if it was possible that the assault happened by Cosby did not remember it.
Cosby also stated in the video that he did not remember meeting Huth or Samuelson, who each testified they met him on a film set, then days later met up with him at a tennis club and briefly visited a house he was staying at then went with him to the mansion.
Asked whether being shown pictures of himself with Huth at the mansion would change his answers about whether he knew them, Cosby replied that it would mean little.
‘Why would that not be possible?’ Huth’s lawyer Nathan Goldberg asked.
‘Because,’ Cosby replied, ‘the fact that this young lady is saying that she told me she was 15.’
In another clip shown in court, Goldberg asked Cosby if he would knowingly have relationships with girls who were under 18 in the mid-1970s.
He answered: ‘No.’ But also said ‘no’ when asked whether he would make sure those he sought sexual relationships with were 18.
Cosby has been undergoing multiple sexual assault allegations in past few years. The former actor was released from prison last year after being convicted of another sexual assault case. He is pictured at his home on June 30, 2021 after being released from prison
‘What is the word ‘know’, that I ‘know’ somebody?’ Cosby said in one of his few long replies in the video. ‘Or that I met someone? Or that, while at Disneyland I met a hundred people and took pictures with them?
‘Or that, while I’m at the airport (where) I’m sitting, waiting to catch a plane and people come up and sit next to me, sit on me, put your arm around me, say hello and take a picture that later might show up somewhere somehow and that I know this person? No, sir.’
He added: ‘It doesn’t mean that they were with me or that I was even with them.’
Two pictures that Samuelson took of Cosby with Huth at the mansion were shown several times during the trial.
Cosby’s lawyer Bonjean acknowledged that he took the girls there but repeatedly denied that any sexual interaction took place.
Huth’s lawsuit states she suffered psychological damage from Cosby’s abuse from 2014 when she began having anxiety over it and flashbacks to it, until 2018 when he was sent to prison in the Pennsylvania criminal case.
Goldberg asked her during the proceedings: ‘Did you know when you were 16 that what Cosby did caused you psychological injury?’
‘No,’ Huth answered. ‘I was just a kid.’
Cosby has been undergoing multiple sexual assault allegations in past few years. The former actor was released from prison in 2021 after being convicted of another sexual assault case.
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