A Los Angeles jury found embattled comedian Bill Cosby liable in a civil case brought by Judy Huth, a woman who claimed he sexually assaulted her as a teenager in the 1970s. The jury ordered him to pay $500,000.
Her lawyer, Gloria Allred, hailed it as a win toward “real change,” although no punitive compensation was awarded.
The Los Angeles court jury comprising of eight women and four men awarded Huth $500,000 in damages. No punitive compensation was given.
The first time Huth filed a case was in 2014 where she claimed sexual battery and both intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress. The incident was said to have occurred in 1974 originally but was later reviewed to 1975 when Huth was 16 years old.
Cosby, 84 denied all allegations. Huth now 64, described the incident where she said that she had met Cosby in 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. Cosby then invited them to a house where he served the young women multiple alcoholic drinks and then took them to the Playboy Mansion.
Huth said that Cosby had even said to the teens, “that if any of the Playboy bunnies asked their age, they should say they were 19.”
She then said that he took her to a bedroom in the mansion where he sexually molested her.
“I was elated,” said Huth on 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 ridiculed 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.
Cosby did not attend the hearing and his legal team plans to appeal the case. Since 2005, more than 50 women have come forward to accuse Cosby of sexual assault. Cosby was convicted of assaulting Andrea Constant in Philadelphia prior to this and he served just under three years in a Pennsylvania state prison before his conviction was overturned. He was released from prison in September 2021. This is the first civil case to make it to trial.
“The late United States Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg once said, ‘Real change, enduring change happens one step at a time. 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,” said Allred.
Allred noted that the case marks the first to go to trial under the Child Victims Act, which protects adult survivors of child sex abuse to come forward and hold their abuser accountable years later. “She or he may come forward years later, and they will have a right to do so,” the attorney and women’s rights activist said outside court.
In a statement issued to the media, 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.”