Civil suit accuses Bill Cosby of sexual battery of 15-year-old girl at Playboy Mansion in 1974
Bill Cosby performs at Thunder Valley Casino Resort in Lincoln, California, in September 2014. Image from Randy Miramontez / Shutterstock.com.
A California woman has filed a civil suit against Bill Cosby, saying that he committed a sexual battery on her in 1974, when she was 15 years old. The woman says that Cosby provided her with alcohol, encouraged her to drink, and took her to the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles where the alleged assault took place.
Radar Online first obtained the lawsuit (PDF), which was filed Tuesday in Los Angeles Superior Court.
Plaintiff Judy Huth’s suit alleges that she and a 16-year-old friend had met Cosby when the two girls happened across a film shoot at a park in San Marino, California. It says that Cosby invited the girls to meet him several days later at a private tennis club. According to the suit, after they met him at the club, he then took them to a private home and served them alcohol, and then on to the Playboy Mansion, where he told them to claim to be 19 if they were asked their age.
The suit says that when Huth asked Cosby where a restroom was, Cosby took her to a bathroom in a bedroom suite. When she emerged, he invited her to sit beside him on a bed and then “proceeded to sexually molest her by attempting to put his hand down her pants, and then taking her hand in his hand and performing a sex act on himself without her consent,” the complaint alleges.
In addition to sexual battery, the suit asserts causes of action for intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress. It seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages for continuing psychological and emotional damage. Cosby is the only defendant.
The suit is the latest accusation against the celebrity entertainer, now 77, who has been beset in recent months by numerous claims that he drugged and sexually assaulted young women over a period of many years. It appears that this is the first such accusation to result in a lawsuit since another woman filed a 2005 complaint in federal court in Philadelphia that was reportedly settled by Cosby.
His lawyer, Martin Singer, did not immediately respond to media requests for comment. However, Singer has previously denied the allegations and said it defies common sense that “so many people would have said nothing, done nothing, and made no reports to law enforcement or asserted civil claims if they thought they had been assaulted over a span of so many years,” CNN reports.
The Tuesday suit suggests the statute of limitations that normally would apply to such claims should be waived because the plaintiff realized only within the past three years that “her psychological injuries and illnesses were caused by the sexual abuse perpetrated by Cosby,” the Hollywood Reporter notes.
The Associated Press, the Los Angeles Times (sub. req.) and Reuters also have stories.
See also:
ABAJournal.com: “Former DA explains his ‘prosecutor speak’ on why he declined to charge Cosby”
New York Times (reg. req.): “Bill Cosby Gave Interview to Keep Charges Secret”
Philadelphia Daily News (opinion): “Cosby resigns from Temple, but Temple still has work to do”
