Woman sues Bill Cosby, saying he sexually assaulted her when she was 15

(Image credit: Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images)

last updated 10 January 2015

A Southern California woman has filed a lawsuit against Bill Cosby, alleging that he sexually assaulted her at the Playboy Mansion in 1974, when she was 15.

Under California law, the most serious sexual assaults involving minor victims can be charged criminally only if they happened after 1988, the Los Angeles Times reports.

In the suit, Judy Hauth said she met Cosby in 1974 when he was filming on location in a park. Cosby allegedly went up to Hauth and a friend, asked how old they were, and invited the girls to his tennis club over the weekend. After meeting at the club, the pair went to a house where Cosby "served them alcoholic beverages and played games of billiards," the suit claims, and then made their way to the Playboy Mansion.

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The lawsuit says that while in a bedroom at the mansion, Cosby allegedly tried to "put his hands down her pants," and then allegedly took Hauth's hand and performed a sexual act on himself "without her consent," a "traumatic incident...[that] has caused psychological damage and mental anguish for plaintiff that has caused her significant problems throughout her life." Before the suit was filed, Cosby's attorney, Martin D. Singer, said lawsuits are brought against celebrities "every day" and there has "never been a shortage of lawyers" willing to take cases against "rich, powerful men."

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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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