Bill Cosby, the 84-year-old comedian who has previously been charged with sexual misbehavior and assault, has been found guilty in yet another harassment case. The jury was debating whether Cosby had mistreated a 16-year-old girl in the iconic Playboy Mansion in 1975. Cosby was a 38-year-old comic at the height of his success with series like I Spy and Fat Albert at the time. On Tuesday afternoon, after the completion of a two-week trial, the jury ruled in favor of the victim. Judy Huth, now 64, has been granted $500,000 in monetary damages.
In 1969, Bill Cosby won a “Man of the Year” award and jokingly suggested renaming it to the “Nice Guy As Far As We Know” award
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What was Bill Cosby’s crime against Judy Huth?
Huth claimed in her complaint that she met Cosby in 1975 at San Marino Park in Los Angeles. Despite the fact that she was underage, the star took her out and bought her booze. He brought her to the Playboy Mansion, a Holmby Hills estate owned by Hugh Hefner, the proprietor of Playboy magazine after they had met a couple more times. The estate was known for wild parties, and the females there were reportedly forced to lie and claim to be 19 years old. Cosby allegedly carried out the attack at one of these parties. According to People, the jury ruled after a 2-week trial that Cosby had actually assaulted Huth at the Playboy Mansion in 1975 when she was a 16-year-old juvenile.
The Downfall of “America’s Dad”
According to Slate, despite multiple allegations of sexual misbehavior being leveled against Cosby as early as the 1960s, the actor was nonetheless adored by fans for his warm, fatherly demeanor on television. By the time the comic was accused of abuse, he had already established himself as an American legend, being dubbed “America’s Dad” by the New Yorker.
According to the Daily Beast, Cosby’s collapse started with a comedic act by Hannibal Buress in October 2014, in which he joked about the superstar’s supposedly predatory behavior. As the video went viral, many women felt empowered to come up about the alleged abuse they suffered at the hands of Cosby. At a news conference in 2015, he said that the charges were baseless. In 2018, the comedian was convicted of three charges of aggravated indecent assault dating back to 2004.
While he was originally sentenced to three to 10 years in jail, his conviction was reversed by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in 2021. Cosby is presently facing two other active lawsuits. In addition to the Playboy Mansion Case, Lili Bernard has accused him of enticing her into an Atlantic City resort and molesting her.
