A judge has denied Bill Cosby‘s motion for a new trial in the case of Judy Huth, who accused him of sexually assaulting her at the Playboy Mansion when she was 16 years old.
In a ruling issued Tuesday evening, Judge Craig D. Karlan rejected Cosby’s arguments that the trial had been unfair and that Huth had not proved her case. Cosby’s spokesman said that he will appeal.
A jury found Cosby liable in June for assaulting Huth and ordered him to pay $500,000 to compensate for her psychological harm.
Huth testified that Cosby brought her and a friend to the Playboy Mansion in 1975, a few days after meeting them at a public park. She told the jury that Cosby got her alone in a bedroom, tried to put his hand down her pants, and then pulled down his sweatpants and forced her to masturbate him.
“It was not what I wanted at all,” she said. “I was freaking out.”
Huth had initially claimed she was 15 when the assault occurred, but revised her timeline shortly before the trial after evidence emerged the assault took place in 1975, and not a year earlier. Cosby’s lawyers argued at the time, and subsequently, that the changing timeline made it much harder for them to defend the case.
The defense also argued that Cosby’s constitutional rights were violated by a California statute that extends the statute of limitations for child sex assault cases. In his ruling, Karlan noted that higher courts have upheld the law, and he had no grounds to find it unconstitutional.
Cosby’s spokesman, Andrew Wyatt, said the ruling was expected.
“We have always stood the ground by saying, ‘this was a trial by assassination against Mr. Cosby,'” Wyatt said in a statement. “The after glow for Mr. Cosby is that he maintains his innocence and vehemently denies all alleged allegations waged against him.”
Gloria Allred, who represents Huth, praised the judge’s ruling.
“once again we won and Bill Cosby lost,” she said. “We believe that Mr. Cosby must be bitterly disappointed with the outcome, but that won’t change the Judge’s decision. The jury found that Bill Cosby was responsible for sexual battery of a child.Child sexual abuse is reprehensible. Mr. Cosby should take responsibility, rather than continuing to fight the jury’s verdict which our law firm, (Allred, Maroko & Goldberg) fought for and won.”
