Bill Cosby to appeal conviction for sexual assault of teenage girl

Bill Cosby will appeal a California court jury verdict that found him guilty of sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl in 1975, a spokesperson for the former American actor. Fifty years after the events, he was ordered on Tuesday to pay $500,000 in damages to Judith Huth, now 64.

During two weeks of hearings in a Santa Monica court, Judy Huth’s defense claimed that the comedian, met on a film set, had made her drink a large quantity of alcohol before taking her to the Playboy Mansion of his friend Hugh Hefner and sexually assaulting him in a bedroom of the mansion, in Los Angeles. Bill Cosby’s defenders denied any aggression on the part of their client and questioned the events related by the complainant.

This civil decision is the only valid conviction to date against the actor, now 84, accused of sexual assault and rape by dozens of women. No criminal proceedings were brought in the case because Judy Huth, now 64, filed a complaint in 2014 after the statute of limitations had expired. In California, however, the law allows civil lawsuits to be launched for adults who remember sexual assaults that occurred during their childhood, even if the statute of limitations has passed for years.