Bill Cosby sexual battery trial: Everything you need to know about the next celebrity court case
Bill Cosby is facing another trial after being accused of sexually assaulting a teenage girl back in the 1970s. Jury selection in the civil case is likely to start on Tuesday, May 24. A rep for Cosby told New York Post that it could last up to a week.
The spokesman also confirmed that the disgraced comedian, in his 80s, will not be present in court for the proceedings. The opening arguments would possibly begin on June 1. The trial is expected to last around seven days. This comes less than a year after Cosby, who is legally blind, was released from prison after his sexual-assault conviction in the drugging and molesting of Andrea Constand in 2004 was overturned by Pennsylvania’s highest court.
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In the current case, Cosby is accused of sexually assaulting Judy Huth at the Playboy mansion in 1975. At the time, Huth was 16 or 17 years of age. Huth had alleged that the assault took place in 1974, following which Cosby's team tried to get the suit dismissed. The team, however, failed after Huth revised the timeline of her allegations.
Judge David Karlan, who refused to throw out the claim, ruled last week that Jennifer Bonjean, Cosby's attorney, could again depose Huth, and her friend Donna Samuelson. Samuelson and Huth were to be deposed on Friday, May 20, and Monday, May 22, respectively, Andrew Wyatt, spokesperson and crisis communicator for Cosby, told New York Post. “This is a trial by assassination of Mr. Cosby’s legacy and livelihood,” the spokesman said. Andrew added that Cosby, who denied the allegations, will be “vindicated” at trial.
Huth's lawsuit was filed in 2014 but repeatedly delayed. In the suit, Huth claimed that she and Samuelson met Cosby while he was filming a movie at Lacy Park in LA. Cosby asked them how old they were, and later invited them to his mansion. Before the meeting, he warned the women to pretend to be 19 if anyone asked about their age. As per the original complaint, Huth claimed Cosby molested her at the mansion by “putting his hand down her pants, and then taking her hand in his hand and performing a sex act on himself without consent." “We deny, obviously, that Mr. Cosby did anything at the Playboy mansion that would constitute a sexual battery,” Bonjean said last week.
One of Huth’s attorneys, John West, said that Huth's claims still fall within the statute of limitations under the 2019 California law. This allows victims to “look back” and sue over child sex assault cases that are decades old. Playboy Enterprises was earlier ordered by the case's judge to provide a list of employees from the mid-1970s so it could be determined if any of them could testify about how visitor logs were maintained back in those years. The company has claimed that it does not have employees who could provide such information. Cosby claims that there is no evidence to suggest Huth was ever at the Playboy mansion.