A Los Angeles jury has found 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, made up of eight women and four men, found Cosby, 84, liable and awarded Huth $500,000 in damages. No punitive compensation was awarded.
Huth first brought the case in 2014, alleging both intentional and negligent sexual assault and infliction of emotional distress. The original filing claimed that the incident occurred in 1974 when Huth was 15, but the timeline was later revised to 1975, when Huth was 16.
Through his attorneys, Cosby has denied all allegations of sexual misconduct.
In his complaint, Huth said he met 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 girls multiple alcoholic beverages and then took them to the Playboy Mansion.
Huth alleged that although Cosby knew her and her friend’s age, he instructed the teenage girls “that if any of the Playboy Bunnies asked them their age, they should say they were 19.”
Huth further claimed that Cosby took her to a room in the mansion where he sexually abused her.
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.
This is the first civil case by any of Cosby’s accusers to go to trial.