The actor, now 84, had made a 16 -year -old girl drink and assaulted in Los Angeles. It is the only condemnation valid to date towards the one accused by dozens of women.
Le Monde with AFP
A California court condemned, Tuesday, June 21, Bill Cosby, a fallen glory of American television, to pay $ 500,000 (475,000 euros) of damages to Judy Huth, sexually assaulted in 1975 while she was 16 years old.
The jurors considered that the actor had voluntarily provoked prejudicial sexual contacts with M me huth, knowing that she was under 18, and that this conduct was motivated by an interest Unnatural or abnormal sexual for a minor person.
Bill Cosby, now 84 years old, did not attend hearings in person, who spread over two weeks in a court of Santa Monica. The defense of Judy Huth, now 64, said during the trial that the actor, met on a film set, had made him drink a large amount of alcohol before taking him to the Playboy Mansion of His friend Hugh Hefner and sexually assaulting him in a house in the house, in Los Angeles.
“Immediately after she sat [on the bed], he jumped … He tried to slip his hands into his panties,” Jury Nathan Goldberg, the lawyer for M huth. When the girl told her that she had her period, Bill Cosby showed her penis and forced her to masturbate, detailed M e goldberg.
none Criminal survey
The defenders of Bill Cosby denied any aggression on the part of their client and questioned the events reported by the complainant, who had started by saying that the facts had taken place in 1974. They also underlined Incons been supposed in her story, and in particular that she had remained, with a 17 -year -old friend who accompanied her, twelve hours in the property after the assault described.
No procedure was carried out because Judy Huth filed a complaint in 2014, once the limitation period has passed. The memories of her client returned with the media coverage of other accusations of sexual violence aimed at Bill Cosby, supported M e goldberg.
In California, the law makes it possible to embark on civil proceedings for adults who remember sexual assault during their childhood, even if the limitation period has been exceeded for years.
Only condemnation valid to date
This civilian decision is the only condemnation valid to date targeting the former actor who has been accused of various sexual assaults by dozens of women. Found guilty of sexual assault in another file in Pennsylvania in 2018 and imprisoned, he was released in June 2021 following a cancellation of his conviction for procedural vice.
The decision of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, then the rejection of an appeal on this file to the American Supreme Court, had been seen by many as a camouflet for the #MeToo movement against violence against women. Bill Cosby embodied for millions of Americans, for years, the ideal father in the Cosby Show series.
An actress who had played in the series, Lili Bernard, filed a complaint in October 2021 in civilian against Mr. Cosby, accusing her of having drugged her and raped over thirty years ago. She claims $ 125 million in damages to a New Jersey court.
In total, sixty women have publicly accused Bill Cosby of being a calculator sex predator who used alcohol and sleeping pills to abuse his victims for decades. The latter, central figure of American popular culture at the end of the 20th th century, has always denied, ensuring that sexual relations were granted.