*Bill Cosby has been found guilty of sexually abusing Judy Huth in 1975 when she was a 16-year-old. A civil jury has ordered him to pay $500,000.
Huth, now age 64, alleged in her lawsuit that Cosby forced her to perform a sex act on him in a bedroom at the Playboy mansion in Los Angeles. Cosby’s lawyer Jennifer Bonjean previously said that Cosby took Huth to the mansion but claims she was not a minor at the time and that no sexual assault took place.
“It is extraordinarily difficult to defend against an allegation from 50 years ago,” said Bonjean ahead of the civil trial. “Nobody could do it, innocent, guilty or something in between,” Bonjean, who also represented Cosby in his criminal case and is representing R. Kelly in his Chicago child pornography trial, said outside court. “You work you work you work to create a defense, and then all of a sudden at the last minute, it’s a bait-and-switch.”
As reported by Variety, Huth’s attorney, Gloria Allred, said the ruling in her client’s favor is a win toward “real change.”
READ MORE: Bill Cosby Not Expected to Appear or Testify at Civil Sex Assault Trial
“It’s been so many years, so many tears, it’s just a long time coming,” Huth said outside the courthouse, reacting to the verdict
“The late United States Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg once said, ‘Real change, enduring change happens one step at a time,’” Allred stated to reporters outside the courthouse. “Today, our client won real change because she fought Bill Cosby one step at a time for over seven-and-a-half years. She proved with the jury’s verdict that Mr. Cosby did sexually assault her when she was a minor, and that he should be held and was held accountable for what he did to her.”
In a statement following the verdict, Cosby’s spokesperson said, in part, “We have always maintained that Judy Huth, Gloria Allred and their cohorts fabricated these false accusations, in order to force Mr. Cosby to finance their racist mission against successful and accomplished Black Men in America.” The statement continued, “Mr. Cosby continues to maintain his innocence and will vigorously fight these false accusations, so that he can get back to bringing the pursuit of happiness, joy and laughter to the world.”
According to the report, nine of the twelve jurors found that Cosby’s conduct was motivated by an “unnatural or abnormal sexual interest in a minor.”
The jury concluded that any “normal person, without hesitation” would have been “disturbed, irritated, offended or injured” by Cosby’s “sexually offensive contact” with Huth.
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