More bad news has come in forBill Cosby. After a criminal trial for sex crimes that resulted in a guilty verdict and a prison sentence of 3-10 years, Cosby was freed last year after serving just under three years behind bars. His conviction was overturned when the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that theGhost Dadstar’s due process rights were violated. It resulted in Cosby going free, even if the release didn’t do much for repairing his reputation.
But Cosby was not out of the woods just yet, legally speaking, even if prison is no longer on the table. PerVariety, Cosby was sued by Judy Huth who’d alleged that she had been assaulted by the comedian in 1975 at the Playboy Mansion when she was 16 years old. The verdict is in, and Cosby was found guilty and ordered to pay Huth $500,000. This is seen as a big win for Huth, though Cosby’s team picked up a small victory as no punitive damages were awarded.
Gloria Allred, Huth’s attorney, stated: “She fought Bill Cosby one step at a time for over seven-and-a-half years. She proved with the jury’s verdict that Mr. Cosby did sexually assault her when she was a minor, and that he should be held and was held accountable for what he did to her.”
Huth added, “I was elated. It’s been so many years, so many tears, it’s just a long time coming.”
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Bill Cosby Did Not Testify
Bill Cosby used his fifth amendment right to avoid testifying at the trial. Jurors were instead shown a videotaped deposition with Cosby insisting he is innocent and would never “pursue a minor for sex.” Cosby’s lawyers also referred to a deposition of Hugh Hefner, taken before the Playboy head’s death in 2017, and attempted to undermine Huth’s credibility by saying that her story details had changed.
Meanwhile, the trial hit a setback on Friday when a verdict had nearly been reached. A scheduling conflict meant one juror needed to leave immediately and wouldn’t be able to continue, and an alternate had been brought in. This also meant that deliberations had to start back over from scratch. Judge Craig Karlan noted that it wouldn’t have been right to rush a verdict in a sensitive trial such as this one. But it doesn’t seem that the extra time was beneficial to Cosby.
When he was released from prison, Cosby again declared that he is innocent of the allegations leveled against him. He also said that he wouldn’t let his critics get him down as he could still smile, feeling he’s found vindication with his release. Cosby also says that his release wasn’t because of a “technicality” but because he’s in fact innocent.
“The court’s decision was not a technicality,” Cosby said, via Black Press USA. “These people sound like they haven’t read what the judges have written. It’s not a technicality. These [detractors] don’t want to know anything. It’s like the woman who said she knows five women that I drugged and raped. Well, where are they?”
He added, “There’sa big smile on my face. A big smile on my face because I was there. I know what happened, and I’m watching and hearing these fascists and Nazis, and I watched them really come out of the woodworks as termites. The infestation of when [former President] Donald Trump came through, and they just let it all hang out. That’s who they are.”
