Cosby has been accused of abusing at least 60 women
Bill Cosby accuser Judy Huth says that “it’s been torture” in the decades since he sexually assaulted her and that Tuesday’s verdict brought her a sense of vindication as the true extent of the actor’s crimes continues to be revealed.
Cosby was found guilty of sexual battery following three days of court proceedings in Santa Monica, California and his victim was awarded a total of $500,000 in damages, according to the New York Times.
The 84-year-old Cosby Show creator was found to have sexually assaulted Huth in the mid-’70s when she was a teenager.
Huth initially claimed the attack occurred in 1974 when she was just 15, but it was later found to have occurred in 1975, when she was 16 and still a minor.
Jurors heard how the assault took place in the Playboy Mansion after Huth, now 62, was invited to the infamous residence by Cosby, where magazine founder Hugh Hefner and many of his ‘bunnies’ lived and worked until his death in 2017.
Huth claimed that she and her friends met Cosby on a film set in a nearby park when he asked, “are you girls ready for your surprise?” Confessing she had “no clue what it could be,” they were then invited to a tennis club days later where they played a game in which they had to drink beer every time they lost at pool, before he then asked them to follow him to the Playboy Mansion.
During the trial, Huth’s lawyers showed the jury a photograph taken by her friend, Donna Samuelson, of her standing next to Cosby in the games room at the mansion where they played arcade machines and pinball. Fifteen minutes later her friend was molested, Huth claimed.
She then went on to explain how after visiting the bathroom, Cosby – who was 37 years old at the time – was sat on the bed and asked her to sit next to him.
“I sat down. He tried to lean me back, he tried to kiss me, he tried to put his hands underneath my belly button where my high-waisted pants were”, she said.
Huh claimed she was on her period to dissuade him, but Cosby ignored her and carried on, eventually forcing her to perform a sex act on him.
Since then and prior to the lawsuit, Huth told US media outlets that she has been ripped apart,”thrown under the bus” and “backed over” in her attempts to bring the case to light.
Cosby was convicted on three counts of indecent sexual assault in 2018 after having drugged and molested former basketball player Andrea Constand in 2004.
Constand’s ordeal is one of countless others, with allegations levelled by more than 60 different individuals.
A Supreme Court decision earlier this year was met with outrage after Cosby was allowed to remain free from prison after a judge threw out the case and had him released in 2021 following an agreement by the previous prosecutor.
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