Dozens of women have accused American actor Bill Cosby of sexual abuse. Despite this, he was released from prison after a conviction. Now an American jury is deliberating on another case.
Bill Cosby stands outside his home in Pennsylvania on June 30, 2021 after the state’s highest court vacated his conviction for sexual assault and ordered his immediate release from prison. At left is Cosby’s attorney, Jennifer Bonjean.
so. / (Reuters) In an ongoing civil lawsuit against American actor Bill Cosby over allegations of sexual abuse, attorneys concluded their pleadings on Wednesday. The grand jury is now deliberating on whether to find the 84-year-old guilty of sexually abusing a minor at the Playboy Mansion.
Cosby’s attorney, Jennifer Bonjean, told jurors not to believe Cosby’s accuser’s allegation that the comedian sexually abused her at the Playboy Mansion in 1975. The attorney contended that plaintiff Judy Huth “did not tell the truth on a number of important counts” when she testified that Cosby forced her into a sexual act when she was 16 years old. The actor and comedian, who was 37 at the time, denies the woman’s allegation.
A key argument from Cosby’s attorney, Bonjean, is that plaintiff Huth later changed the date the alleged incident took place. When Huth filed the lawsuit in December 2014, she alleged that Cosby took her hand and masturbated with it in a bedroom at the property in 1974. Weeks before the trial, she said she was wrong about the date and now believes it happened in 1975.
“I don’t think you can believe anything Mrs. Huth says,” Bonjean told the jury. Bonjean argued that Huth and a friend who accompanied her to the mansion made up a story together to get money from Cosby. The friend initially said the date was 1974. Both also testified that they remembered playing the Donkey Kong arcade game at the mansion that night, but that game didn’t exist until 1981.
This fact came up repeatedly in the trial. Huth said she only cited Donkey Kong as an example of the type of game she remembered playing. Attorney Bonjean ended her closing remarks by displaying a “Game Over” message, typical of arcade games, on a screen in the courtroom. This prompted Huth’s attorney, Nathan Goldberg, to retaliate. “This isn’t about a game,” he called out to Bonjean during his closing remarks to the jury. “Have some respect for someone who has been sexually abused.”
Goldberg asked the jury to hold Cosby “fully responsible.” Huth is seeking compensation for the emotional distress she says she has endured since 2014, when the allegations against Cosby made the news, and since 2018, when he was sentenced to prison for sexual assault in Pennsylvania. «Four years of suffering. What is that worth to someone? 1 million dollars a year? $2 million a year?” asked Goldberg.
The jury in the case, which is being tried in California Superior Court, is expected to begin deliberations Thursday after the judge gave instructions to the jury.
Cosby absent from court
Cosby did not appear in person at the trial, but the jury was shown a roughly 10-minute video of Cosby answering questions from one of Huth’s attorneys during testimony in 2015. While Cosby said he didn’t remember Huth, the incident couldn’t have happened because he wasn’t seeking sexual contact with a 15-year-old girl at the time.
The California civil trial comes eleven months after Cosby was released from prison. At that time, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned his conviction for sexual assault in another case.
Cosby, 84, is best known for his role as the lovable husband and father on the 1980s television comedy The Cosby Show, which earned him the nickname “America’s Dad.” But his family-friendly reputation was shattered after more than 50 women accused him of sexual assault for nearly five decades.