Former comedian Bill Cosby has been found guilty of sexual abuse by a civil jury. A jury in Santa Monica, Calif., ruled that Cosby molested a 16-year-old girl in the 1970s, the verdict said.
The attack took place at the Playboy Mansion, home of Playboy founder Hugh Hefner in Los Angeles. The jury sentenced the 84-year-old to pay the plaintiff $500,000 in damages.
According to her lawyer, Cosby first got the teens drunk and then took her to the Playboy Mansion. Plaintiff testified that Cosby assaulted in a bedroom. He first asked her to sit next to him on a bed. He then groped her, exposed himself to her and forced her to touch him sexually.
Lawsuit filed in 2014
The 64-year-old had already sued Cosby in 2014. There was no criminal prosecution because the incident was already statute-barred. Because the woman was a minor at the time, she was still able to take civil action against Cosby with claims for damages.
The civil case was stayed when Cosby faced criminal charges in Pennsylvania in 2017. In that trial, Cosby was found guilty in 2018 of sexually abusing a woman in 2004. The court ruled that he had drugged and molested his victim at his home in Philadelphia.
Cosby was sentenced to a minimum of three and a maximum of 10 years in prison. However, he was released from custody in June 2021 after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned the verdict on formal grounds.
A total of more than 60 women have accused Cosby of sexual abuse, but most of the cases are statute-barred. The California civil suit was one of the last legal actions against Cosby.
