Embattled comedy icon, Bill Cosby, has been found liable for sexual assault on Tuesday in a civil case brought by Judy Huth.
CNN reported that Huth accused Cosby of sexually assaulting her at the Playboy Mansion in 1975 when she was 16, and he was 37, and forced her to perform a sex act.
During the trial on Tuesday, the jury, comprised of eight women and four men, ordered Cosby to pay Huth $500,000 in damages for emotional distress from the incident. No punitive compensation was awarded.
According to Reuters, the verdict came nearly a year after Cosby was freed from prison when Pennsylvania’s highest court threw out his sexual assault conviction in a different criminal case there.
Through his lawyers, Cosby, 84, has denied all allegations of sexual misconduct.
In her complaint, Huth told of meeting Cosby at a park where he was filming a movie. After befriending Huth and a friend, Cosby allegedly invited them to join him at his tennis club. From there, Huth alleged, the comedian invited them to a house where he served the young women multiple alcoholic drinks and then took them to the Playboy Mansion.
Huth alleged that though Cosby knew her age and that of her friend, he directed the teens “that if any of the Playboy bunnies asked their age, they should say they were 19.”
Huth further claimed that Cosby took her to a bedroom in the mansion where he sexually molested her.
CNN has reached out to Cosby’s attorneys for comment on the verdict.
Huth was all smiles when she briefly spoke to reporters outside a Santa Monica courthouse.
“I was elated,” she said of the verdict. “It has been so many years, so many tears.”
This case “proves that you can run but you can’t hide,” said Nathan Goldberg, an attorney for Huth.
Cosby’s spokesman and attorney were loudly jeered by onlookers as they gave statements to the media.
“What happened today wasn’t a victory, because they didn’t get the punitive damages,” said Cosby’s spokesperson Andrew Wyatt, insisting that Cosby is happy with the verdict.
Cosby was not present for the trial or the verdict, and his team plans to file an appeal.
Since 2005, more than 50 women have come forward to accuse Cosby of sexual assault. After being convicted of assaulting Andrea Constand in Philadelphia, Cosby served just under three years in a Pennsylvania state prison before his conviction was overturned on appeal. He was released from prison in September 2021.
