California jury finds Bill Cosby sexually assaulted 16-year-old in 1975
A California jury on Tuesday found that Bill Cosby sexually assaulted Judy Huth at the Playboy Mansion in 1975, when Huth was 16 years old. The jury awarded Huth $500,000 in damages.
Huth, 64, filed a civil lawsuit against Cosby, 84, in 2014, accusing him of assaulting her during a night at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles. Huth and her friend, Donna Samuelson, met Cosby in nearby San Marino while he was filming the movie Let's Do It Again. Both women testified during the trial that Cosby invited them to his tennis club and house, and then had them follow him by car to the Playboy Mansion. Once there, Huth said, Cosby forced her to perform a sex act on him. She also testified that Cosby knew she was "15 or 16" years old.
Cosby denied the allegations, and during a 2015 deposition, said he did not know Huth, never had sexual contact with her, and was unable to identify her. His lawyers also accused Huth of creating a "complete and utter fabrication" in order to make money off of Cosby. In her lawsuit, Huth — who entered into evidence a snapshot of her with Cosby at the Playboy Mansion — initially said the assault took place in 1973 or 1974, but after the trial began, Huth and her attorneys said further evidence showed it took place in the spring of 1975.
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Four years ago, Cosby was found guilty of drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand, a former Temple University employee, in 2005 at his Pennsylvania home. He was sentenced to three to 10 years in state prison, but his conviction was overturned by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court last year after it ruled prosecutors violated Cosby's due process rights.
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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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