Bill Cosby appealing $500,000 judgment in Riverside County woman’s sexual abuse suit

SANTA MONICA — Having been denied a new trial by a Superior Court judge, Bill Cosby is now appealing a jury’s verdict awarding $500,000 to a Riverside County woman who said the comedian sexually abused her when she was a teenager at the Playboy Mansion in the 1970s.

Cosby’s lawyers filed a notice of appeal on Wednesday. On Sept. 27, Santa Monica Superior Court Judge Craig D. Karlan, in rejecting the “I Spy” co-star’s bid for a retrial of plaintiff Judy Huth’s suit, wrote that he had “failed to establish he received an unfair trial or that insufficient evidence existed to establish his liability for plaintiff’s harm.”

Huth’s lawyers produced evidence that Cosby “intended to engage in sexual contact” with Huth — knowing she was a minor at the time — and also presented the testimony of others to corroborate the plaintiff’s story, Karlan further wrote.

Karlan also rejected Cosby’s motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict.

Cosby’s attorneys had asked Karlan to set aside the judgment entered July 12 in favor of the 64-year-old Huth. The Canyon Lake woman testified that Cosby fondled her and forced her to perform a sex act on him while visiting the mansion in 1975, when she was 16 years old. The jury reached its verdict on June 21.

During trial, Cosby’s attorneys denied any wrongdoing and pointed to inconsistencies in Huth’s story, including a recent change in the year she claimed the attack happened. In their court papers, the comedian’s legal team argued that the grounds for the retrial included that the comedian received an unfair trial, that there was insufficient evidence to justify the verdict and that errors in law occurred.

During the nearly two-week trial, attorneys for Huth said Cosby — who is now 85 and legally blind — assaulted her in a game room at the mansion. Attorneys said Cosby escorted Huth and her then-17-year-old friend, Donna Samuelson, to the mansion after he met them while in the area to film the movie “Let’s Do It Again” with Jimmie Walker and Sidney Poitier.

Huth’s suit was filed in December 2014 and was the first sex abuse civil trial against Cosby to reach a jury. Cosby did not attend the proceedings.

His attorneys staunchly denied any wrongdoing by the comedian, noting Huth and Samuelson spent as many as 12 hours at the Playboy Mansion after the alleged assault. They also argued Huth originally claimed the attack happened in 1974 when she was 15, then changed her story to say it occurred a year later.

Steve Rosenberg graduated from the San Fernando Valley’s U.S. Grant High School, attended CSU Northridge, and has a BA degree in comparative literature from UC Santa Cruz. He has worked for the Glendale News-Press, City News Service, Crain Communications and the LA Daily News in the Southern California News Group. Steve has an interest in technology and how it affects our political and everyday lives.

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