LOS ANGELES | Bill Cosby is again facing American justice, this time in California, where a civil trial begins Monday against the actor accused of sexually assaulting a teenage girl nearly 50 years ago.
• Read also: US: Supreme Court rejects appeal over overturned conviction of Bill Cosby
Judy Huth says she was sexually assaulted by the actor, who for years played the ideal father on the Cosby Show, when she was only 15, in 1974, in the famous Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles.
She claims to have suffered from psychological after-effects.
Ms Huth says she met Bill Cosby on the set of a film. According to her, the actor then invited her to his tennis club, giving her alcohol before taking her to the Playboy Mansion, where he allegedly abused her.
A version of the facts denied by the 84-year-old actor, who has already been accused by dozens of women of sexual assault.
Bill Cosby was notably released from prison in June 2021 after the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania overturned his sentence to a minimum of three years in prison for the 2004 sexual assault of Andrea Constand, a woman who worked for Temple University. in Philadelphia.
Judy Huth filed a civil complaint on December 2, 2014, but the court suspended the proceedings due to the criminal charges against Cosby at the time.
The decision of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, then the rejection of an appeal on this case to the American Supreme Court in March 2022, was seen by many as a snub for the #MeToo movement against violence against women.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court did not clear Mr. Cosby, but quashed the conviction for a procedural defect.
The first prosecutor in charge of the case concerning Andrea Constand had decided in 2005 not to prosecute Mr. Cosby in criminal proceedings, while encouraging him to testify in civil proceedings brought by the complainant, which he had agreed to do.
During this hearing, the actor had admitted to having given Ms. Constand a sedative before having a sexual relationship with her, according to him consented, because she had not protested or expressed her disapproval, a testimony which was then used against him during his criminal trial.
The new civil trial against Bill Cosby begins in Santa Monica with jury selection and closing arguments for the prosecution and defense set to begin next week.
