Bill Cosby Sexually Abused 16-Year-Old Girl, Jury Finds

Bill Cosby just lost another belated court case and was found guilty of another sexual assault decades after the fact. According to a report by The Associated Press, a jury found in favor of Judy Huth in a civil trial against Cosby on Tuesday. He was found guilty of sexually abusing Huth at the Playboy Mansion in 1975 when Huth was just 16 years old.

The saga of Cosby’s belated legal consequences for years of alleged sexual violence has not been straightforward. The 84-year-old comedian was freed from prison about a year ago when his conviction for sexual assault was thrown out by a Pennsylvania judge. Huth, 64, had one of the last active legal claims against Cosby — in part because Cosby’s insurer settled many other lawsuits out of court against Cosby’s will. Her case was heard in Los Angeles County, California. Jurors officially found Cosby guilty of having intentional harmful sexual contact with a minor, knowing that Huth was underage at the time and having “unnatural or abnormal sexual interest in a minor.”

Cosby was ordered to pay $500,000 to Huth, but she was not awarded further punitive damages. However, she told reporters that having the jury believe her story, at last, was the most rewarding part for her. She said: “It’s been torture. To be ripped apart, you know, thrown under the bus and back over. This, to me, is such a big victory.”

Cosby did not attend the trial in person or give new testimony, but jurors were shown a video of a 2015 deposition about Huth’s case. In it, Cosby denied having ever had any sexual contact with Huth. He reportedly denies it still in spite of Tuesday’s results. A spokesperson for Cosby’s legal team, Andrew Wyatt, said that they plan to appeal this verdict and they believe they have a strong case since Huth wasn’t awarded punitive damages.

Cosby reportedly met Huth and her friend, Donna Samuelson, on a film set in April of 1975, then invited them to the Playboy Mansion with him a few days later. Samuelson provided photos of Huth and Cosby at the mansion together along with her testimony as a key witness. All three of them ended up hanging out in a bedroom next to a game room in the infamous house. There, Huth testified that Cosby tried to put his hand down her pants, then exposed himself and forced her to perform a sex act on him.

Huth’s lawsuit took almost 8 years to reach this conclusion, and many other allegations against Cosby have been resolved in the meantime. After last year’s reversal in Pennsylvania, many victims and advocates celebrated this result.