Jury selection in a civil trial against Bill Cosby began in Los Angeles this week, nearly a year after the actor was freed from prison when his conviction on charges of drugging and sexually assaulting another woman were overturned.
The trial in Los Angeles concerns allegations by Judy Huth, who has accused Cosby of sexually abusing her at the Playboy mansion in 1975 when she was 16 and he was 37. She had initially alleged that Cosby assaulted her in 1974 when she was 15, but later revised that claim.
Huth first filed the lawsuit in 2014, as Cosby faced accusations from dozens of women, but the case was delayed due to a criminal trial in Pennsylvania.
In that case, a Pennsylvania jury convicted Cosby of drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand in 2004. Cosby had previously agreed to pay Constand more than $3m as part of a civil settlement.
The state’s supreme court overturned Cosby’s conviction on a legal technicality last year and released him from prison just two years into his sentence. The move dealt a painful blow to the dozens of women who have accused the TV star of sexual assault, attempted abuse and harassment.
Huth has said she and a friend met Cosby at a park, according to her filings, and that the actor days later took her and her friend to the Playboy mansion. At the mansion, Huth alleges, Cosby assaulted her, “putting his hand down her pants, and then taking her hand in his hand and performing a sex act on himself without consent”.
Cosby has acknowledged meeting Huth, but since 2014 has denied her allegations of assault or that she was a minor when they met. His legal team has called Huth’s revision of the year the alleged assault took place a “trial by ambush”.
Gloria Allred, Huth’s attorney, challenged that claim. “It is a trial by evidence. We believe that the defense was well aware of the fact that the incident at the Playboy mansion occurred in 1975 when Judith Huth was 16 years old prior to our notifying the defense in a court filing in early May.
“What we believe they are upset about is that they were intending to ambush Ms Huth on the witness stand by proving that the event at the mansion could not have occurred when she was 15 years old and we upset their plans.”
Huth’s case is one of several civil suits to have been filed by women against Cosby, but the first to reach the trial stage.
The statute of limitations for criminal charges in Huth’s case has long since expired, but she is able to seek damages due to a recent California law that extended the time period in which victims of child sex abuse can file civil lawsuits.
Cosby does not plan to testify in the trial, a spokesperson told People. “Since he is 100% blind with glaucoma and the Covid numbers are going up, we just don’t want to take any chances,” Andrew Wyatt said.
The 84-year-old is hopeful about the trial and “feels he is in capable hands”, Wyatt added. “He feels he will experience the same vindication he experienced in Pennsylvania. The jurors will pay attention to the facts of this case and they will make their decisions without any prejudice towards him … We do believe he will be vindicated”.
Cosby’s representatives did not immediately return a request for comment.
The trial is expected to last two weeks.
