News Analysis India

Tag: Bill Cosby

  • Los Angeles court denies retrial for Bill Cosby in Judy Huth sexual assault case

    By ANI

    WASHINGTON: A Los Angeles Superior Court judge has stated that American comedian and actor Bill Cosby, in his sexual assault civil case involving a minor from the 1970s, will not get to re-litigate.

    According to Deadline, in a September 27 ruling, Judge Craig Karlan said, “Cosby has failed to establish he received an unfair trial or that insufficient evidence existed to establish his liability for Plaintiff’s harm.”

    This decision denies Cosby a retrial on the decades-old claims by Judy Huth. The ruling by the LASC judge came fairly quickly after hearing arguments on September 23 in the Santa Monica Courthouse.

    Cosby’s attorneys have sought to have Karlan overturn the June jury decision against their client, based primarily on timeline inconsistencies in Huth’s case.

    Initially, back in 2014, Huth had claimed that she was assaulted by Cosby at the age of 15 in Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Mansion.

    Mere weeks before the civil trial, Huth said that she had a clear memory of events and moved the year of the assault to 1975.

    In a statement to Deadline, Cosby’s longtime representative Andrew Wyatt said, “Judge Karlan denying Mr Cosby a new trial was expected but it’s unfortunate that this judge ignored the inconsistencies in Ms Huth’s testimony during cross-examination and the mere fact that Ms Huth changed her timeline of events in the 11th hour before the trial.”

    He added, “We have always stood our ground by saying, ‘This was a trial by assassination against Mr Cosby.’ The afterglow for Mr Cosby is that he maintains his innocence and vehemently denies all alleged allegations waged against him; but most importantly, Mr Cosby will move forward with his appeal, which will preclude any monies (USD 500,000) from being awarded to Ms Huth.”

    Previously, over 50 women have accused Cosby of sexual misconduct. The American actor was also convicted of sexually harassing Andrea Constand in Philadelphia as a result of which he was sentenced to three years in a state prison in Pennsylvania, reported CNN.

    However, on an appeal, his conviction was overturned and he was released from prison in September 2021.

    WASHINGTON: A Los Angeles Superior Court judge has stated that American comedian and actor Bill Cosby, in his sexual assault civil case involving a minor from the 1970s, will not get to re-litigate.

    According to Deadline, in a September 27 ruling, Judge Craig Karlan said, “Cosby has failed to establish he received an unfair trial or that insufficient evidence existed to establish his liability for Plaintiff’s harm.”

    This decision denies Cosby a retrial on the decades-old claims by Judy Huth. The ruling by the LASC judge came fairly quickly after hearing arguments on September 23 in the Santa Monica Courthouse.

    Cosby’s attorneys have sought to have Karlan overturn the June jury decision against their client, based primarily on timeline inconsistencies in Huth’s case.

    Initially, back in 2014, Huth had claimed that she was assaulted by Cosby at the age of 15 in Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Mansion.

    Mere weeks before the civil trial, Huth said that she had a clear memory of events and moved the year of the assault to 1975.

    In a statement to Deadline, Cosby’s longtime representative Andrew Wyatt said, “Judge Karlan denying Mr Cosby a new trial was expected but it’s unfortunate that this judge ignored the inconsistencies in Ms Huth’s testimony during cross-examination and the mere fact that Ms Huth changed her timeline of events in the 11th hour before the trial.”

    He added, “We have always stood our ground by saying, ‘This was a trial by assassination against Mr Cosby.’ The afterglow for Mr Cosby is that he maintains his innocence and vehemently denies all alleged allegations waged against him; but most importantly, Mr Cosby will move forward with his appeal, which will preclude any monies (USD 500,000) from being awarded to Ms Huth.”

    Previously, over 50 women have accused Cosby of sexual misconduct. The American actor was also convicted of sexually harassing Andrea Constand in Philadelphia as a result of which he was sentenced to three years in a state prison in Pennsylvania, reported CNN.

    However, on an appeal, his conviction was overturned and he was released from prison in September 2021.

  • Cosby in video testimony denies sex abuse of teen in 1970s

    By Associated Press

    SANTA MONICA: In video testimony played for jurors Wednesday at a civil trial, Bill Cosby denies sexually abusing a teenage girl at the Playboy Mansion in the mid-1970s.

    Asked by an attorney for Judy Huth, who is suing Cosby, whether he had tried to put his hand down Huth’s pants, Cosby quickly and clearly answers “no.” Asked if he exposed himself and forced her to touch him sexually, Cosby answers “no” in the same way.

    Asked whether it was possible that these things happened but Cosby didn’t remember them, Cosby answered “no.” “Why would that not be possible?” Huth’s attorney Nathan Goldberg asks. “Because,” Cosby replies, “the fact that this young lady is saying that she told me she was 15.”

    In another clip, Goldberg asks Cosby if he would knowingly have relationships with girls who were under 18 in the mid-1970s. Cosby answers “no.” But he also says “no” when asked whether he would make sure those he sought sexual relationships with were 18.

    At the time the video deposition was taken, on Oct. 9, 2015, Huth maintained that the molestation had taken place in 1973 or 1974, when she was 15, but shortly before trial said an examination of the evidence showed it was in 1975, when she was 16.

    The 12 minutes of clips, played for the jury at the end of the sixth day of the trial in Los Angeles County, represent the first time Cosby’s voice was heard during the proceedings. He’s wearing a gray sportscoat with a dress shirt and tie and sitting at a table.

    The 85-year-old actor and comedian are not attending the trial due to glaucoma that has left him blind, his representatives said. A judge also ruled that he could invoke his Fifth Amendment privilege and decline to testify or to give a second deposition in the case that the plaintiff had sought.

    Cosby says in the video that he did not remember meeting Huth or her friend Donna Samuelson, who each testified earlier in the trial that they met him on a film set, then days later met up with him at a tennis club, briefly visited a house he was staying at then went with him to the mansion.

    Asked whether being shown pictures of himself with Huth at the mansion would change his answers about whether he knew them, Cosby replies that it would mean little.

    “What is the word ‘know,’ that I ‘know’ somebody?” Cosby says in one of his few long replies in the video. “Or that I met someone? Or that, while at Disneyland I met a hundred people and took pictures with them? Or that, while I’m at the airport I’m sitting, waiting to catch a plane and people come up and sit next to me, sit on me, put your arm around me, say hello and take a picture that later might show up somewhere somehow and that I know this person? No, sir.”

    Cosby adds, “It doesn’t mean that they were with me, or that I was even with them.” Two pictures that Samuelson took of Cosby with Huth at the mansion have been shown several times during the trial. Cosby’s attorney Jennifer Bonjean has acknowledged that he took the girls there, but both Bonjean and Cosby spokesman Andrew Wyatt has repeatedly denied that any sexual interaction took place.

    Huth’s attorneys rested their case after playing the video. Cosby’s attorneys will begin calling their own witnesses Thursday. Huth, now 64, was on the stand earlier Wednesday after testifying for much of Tuesday.

    ALSO READ: Bill Cosby faces sex abuse allegations again as civil trial opens

    While cross-examining her, Bonjean challenged Huth over the timing of her struggles with depression, suggesting they were clearly not spurred by any abuse from Cosby.

    Huth filed the lawsuit in 2014, saying that her son turning 15 that same year brought back painful memories of her sexual assault, and brought on subsequent depression.

    Bonjean showed Huth medical records from 2011, 2012 and 2013 in which her doctor assessed her with major depression and prescribed her anti-depressants.

    “We can agree that you suffered from major depression before your son turned 15?” Bonjean asked Huth, who was on the witness stand in a Los Angeles County courthouse for the second day in the civil trial. “I don’t know that I did,” Huth said. “So medical records showing that would be inaccurate?” Bonjean asked.

    Huth repeatedly answered that and similar questions by saying she did not remember dealing with depression or taking medications for it during those years but acknowledged that the documents in front of her said she had.

    Bonjean also pointed to different potential causes for Huth’s depression. “You had a long history of trauma in your life that had nothing to do with Mr Cosby, right?” Bonjean asked. “Nothing as bad as that, that’s for sure,” Huth answered.

    Huth’s lawsuit says she suffered psychological damage from Cosby’s abuse from 2014 when she began having anxiety over it and flashbacks to it, until 2018 when he was sent to prison in the Pennsylvania criminal case.

    Goldberg, her attorney, asked her Wednesday, “Did you know when you were 16 that what Mr Cosby did cause you psychological injury?” “No,” Huth answered. “I was just a kid.”

    The trial represents one of the last remaining legal claims against the 85-year-old Cosby after his criminal conviction was thrown out by an appeals court and he was freed from prison last year, and his insurer settled many other lawsuits against his will.

    The Associated Press does not normally name people who say they have been sexually abused, unless they come forward publicly, as Huth has.

  • Bill Cosby faces sex abuse allegations again as civil trial opens

    By Associated Press

    SANTA MONICA: Bill Cosby will again be facing sex abuse allegations Wednesday as attorneys give opening statements in a civil trial that’s one of the last remaining legal claims against the comedian.

    Lawyers for 64-year-old Judy Huth will outline the evidence they plan to present that Cosby forced her to perform a sex act at the Playboy Mansion in 1975 when she was 16 years old. The case will hinge on the testimony of Huth, bolstered by photos and other archival exhibits to place the incident in time.

    Cosby’s attorneys, who say no sexual abuse happened, are likely to emphasize that the burden of proving the nearly 50-year-old case lies entirely with the plaintiffs. They have acknowledged that Cosby took Huth to the Playboy Mansion, as a photo from the visit shows, but say they believe she was not a minor when it happened.

    The trial is one of the last cases Cosby, 85, faces after a Pennsylvania appeals court threw out his criminal sexual assault conviction and freed him from prison 11 months ago. Several other lawsuits alleging sexual misconduct were settled by his insurer against his will.

    Cosby will not testify after the judge ruled that he could assert his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. And he has no plans to leave his Pennsylvania home to attend the trial, which is taking place at a small courthouse in Santa Monica. Cosby’s representatives say glaucoma has left him blind and made travel too difficult.

    The Associated Press does not normally name people who say they have been sexually abused, unless they come forward publicly, as Huth has.

  • Artist sues newly freed Bill Cosby over 1990 hotel encounter

    By Associated Press

    PHILADELPHIA: A prominent Bill Cosby accuser filed suit Thursday, October 14, 2021, against the actor over a 1990 hotel room encounter in Atlantic City, New Jersey, before the state’s two-year window to file older sexual assault claims expires.Los Angeles artist Lili Bernard told The Associated Press she was prompted in part by Cosby’s recent release from prison. The 84-year-old Cosby has been free since June, when the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned his 2018 sexual assault conviction in another case on procedural grounds.He had served more than two years of a potential 10-year sentence.The 57-year-old Bernard says Cosby drugged and raped her in a hotel room after promising to mentor her on his top-ranked TV show. She was 26 at the time.New Jersey’s two-year window to file sexual assault lawsuits that would otherwise be considered too old to pursue closes next month.”When Bill Cosby was released, it retraumatized me, it terrified me. I was really horrified for any woman or girl that would come into contact with him,” Bernard told the AP. “The Pennsylvania Supreme Court let a predator back on the streets.”The Pennsylvania trial judge had classified Cosby as a sexually violent predator subject to lifetime supervision, but that finding became moot when the conviction was overturned, leaving Cosby free of any reporting requirements.Cosby’s spokesperson said that so-called “look-back” windows like the one passed in New Jersey violate a person’s due process rights.”This is just another attempt to abuse the legal process, by opening up the flood gates for people who never presented an ounce of evidence,” spokesperson Andrew Wyatt said, noting that Cosby maintains his innocence and would fight allegations to “the highest court in these United States of America.”Prosecutors in suburban Philadelphia must decide soon whether to appeal the reversal of his conviction in their case to the U.S. Supreme Court.A jury had convicted Cosby of sexually assaulting Temple University sports administrator Andrea Constand at his home in January 2004 after incapacitating her with three blue pills. Cosby was arrested in 2015, days before the 12-year statute of limitations expired.The state Supreme Court said the case should not have gone to trial because Cosby believed he had a binding promise from an earlier prosecutor that he would never be charged.Cosby settled a civil lawsuit with Constand for $3.4 million. His insurer, after the conviction, settled a defamation lawsuit filed by seven accusers in Massachusetts for an undisclosed amount.The AP typically does not identify people who say they are sexual assault victims without their permission, which both Constand and Bernard have granted. 

  • Bill Cosby freed from prison, his sex conviction overturned by court

    By Associated Press
    PHILADELPHIA: Pennsylvania’s highest court threw out Bill Cosby’s sexual assault conviction and released him from prison Wednesday in a stunning reversal of fortune for the comedian once known as “America’s Dad,” ruling that the prosecutor who brought the case was bound by his predecessor’s agreement not to charge Cosby.

    Cosby, 83, flashed the V-for-victory sign to a helicopter overhead as he trudged into his suburban Philadelphia home after serving nearly three years of a three- to 10-year sentence for drugging and violating Temple University sports administrator Andrea Constand in 2004.

    The former “Cosby Show” star — the first celebrity tried and convicted in the #MeToo era — had no comment as he arrived, and just smiled and nodded later at a news conference outside, where his lawyer Jennifer Bonjean said: “We are thrilled to have Mr. Cosby home.”

    “He served three years of an unjust sentence and he did it with dignity and principle,” she added.

    In a statement, Constand and her lawyers called the ruling disappointing, and they, like many other advocates, expressed fear that it could discourage sexual assault victims from coming forward. “We urge all victims to have their voices heard,” they added.

    Cosby was arrested in 2015, when a district attorney armed with newly unsealed evidence — the comic’s damaging deposition in a lawsuit brought by Constand — filed charges against him just days before the 12-year statute of limitations was about to run out.

    But the Pennsylvania Supreme Court said Wednesday that District Attorney Kevin Steele, who made the decision to arrest Cosby, was obligated to stand by his predecessor’s promise not to charge Cosby, though there was no evidence that agreement was ever put in writing.

    Justice David Wecht, writing for a split court, said Cosby had relied on the previous district attorney’s decision not to charge him when the comedian gave his potentially incriminating testimony in Constand’s civil case.

    The court called Cosby’s subsequent arrest “an affront to fundamental fairness, particularly when it results in a criminal prosecution that was forgone for more than a decade.” It said justice and “fair play and decency” require that the district attorney’s office stand by the decision of the previous DA.

    The justices said that overturning the conviction and barring any further prosecution “is the only remedy that comports with society’s reasonable expectations of its elected prosecutors and our criminal justice system.”

    Cosby was promptly set free from the state prison in suburban Montgomery County and driven home.

    “What we saw today was justice, justice for all Americans,” said a Cosby spokesperson, Andrew Wyatt. ”Mr. Cosby’s conviction being overturned is for the world and all Americans who are being treated unfairly by the judicial system and some bad officers.”

    Bonjean said Cosby was “extremely happy to be home” and “looks forward to reuniting with his wife and children.” Several supporters outside yelled, “Hey, hey, hey!” — the catchphrase of Cosby’s animated Fat Albert character — which brought a smile from him.

    He later tweeted an old photo of himself with his fist raised and eyes closed, with the caption: “I have never changed my stance nor my story. I have always maintained my innocence. Thank you to all my fans, supporters and friends who stood by me through this ordeal. Special thanks to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court for upholding the rules of law.”

    In a statement, Steele, the district attorney, said Cosby went free “on a procedural issue that is irrelevant to the facts of the crime.” He commended Constand for coming forward and added: “My hope is that this decision will not dampen the reporting of sexual assaults by victims.”

    “I am furious to hear this news,” actor Amber Tamblyn, a founder of Time’s Up, an advocacy group for sex-crime victims, said on Twitter. “I personally know women who this man drugged and raped while unconscious. Shame on the court and this decision.”

    But “Cosby Show” co-star Phylicia Rashad tweeted: “FINALLY!!!! A terrible wrong is being righted — a miscarriage of justice is corrected!”

    Four Supreme Court justices formed the majority that ruled in Cosby’s favor, while three others dissented in whole or in part.

    Peter Goldberger, a suburban Philadelphia lawyer with an expertise in criminal appeals, said prosecutors could ask the Pennsylvania Supreme Court for reargument or reconsideration, but it would be a very long shot.

    “I can’t imagine that with such a lengthy opinion, with a thoughtful concurring opinion and a thoughtful dissenting opinion, that you could honestly say they made a simple mistake that would change their minds if they point it out to them,” Goldberger said.

    Even though Cosby was charged only with the assault on Constand, the judge at his trial allowed five other accusers to testify that they, too, were similarly victimized by Cosby in the 1980s. Prosecutors called them as witnesses to establish what they said was a pattern of behavior on Cosby’s part.

    Cosby’s lawyers had argued on appeal that the use of the five additional accusers was improper. But the Pennsylvania high court did not weigh in on the question, saying it was moot, given the finding that Cosby should not have been prosecuted in the first place.

    In sentencing Cosby, the trial judge had declared him a sexually violent predator who could not be safely allowed out in public and needed to report to authorities for the rest of his life.

    In May, Cosby was denied parole after refusing to participate in sex offender programs behind bars. He said he would resist the treatment programs and refuse to acknowledge wrongdoing even if it meant serving the full 10 years.

    The groundbreaking Black actor grew up in public housing in Philadelphia and made a fortune estimated at $400 million during his 50 years in the entertainment industry that included the TV shows “I Spy,” “The Cosby Show” and “Fat Albert,” along with comedy albums and a multitude of television commercials.

    The suburban Philadelphia prosecutor who originally looked into Constand’s allegations, Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce Castor, considered the case flawed because Constand waited a year to come forward and stayed in contact with Cosby afterward. Castor declined to prosecute and instead encouraged Constand to sue for damages.

    Questioned under oath as part of that lawsuit, Cosby said he used to offer quaaludes to women he wanted to have sex with. He eventually settled with Constand for $3.4 million.

    Portions of the deposition later became public at the request of The Associated Press and spelled Cosby’s downfall, opening the floodgates on accusations from other women and destroying the comic’s good-guy reputation and career. More than 60 women came forward to say Cosby violated them.

    The AP does not typically identify sexual assault victims without their permission, which Constand has granted.

    Cosby, in the deposition, acknowledged giving quaaludes to a 19-year-old woman before having sex with her at a Las Vegas hotel in 1976. Cosby called the encounter consensual.

    On Wednesday, the woman, Therese Serignese, now 64, said the court ruling “takes my breath away.”

    “I just think it’s a miscarriage of justice. This is about procedure. It’s not about the truth of the women,” she said. Serignese said she took solace in the fact Cosby served nearly three years behind bars: “That’s as good as it gets in America” for sex crime victims.