SANTA MONICA - A jury has ordered Bill Cosby to pay $500,000 to Judy Huth, who alleged that he molested her at the Playboy Mansion in 1975 when she was a 16-year-girl, but did not find punitive damages.

The verdict Tuesday ruled in Huth’s favor, which her attorney, Gloria Allred, hailed as a win “real change.”

“She fought Bill Cosby one step at a time for over seven-and-a-half years,” Allred said, praising Huth. “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.”

“I was elated,” Huth said outside the courthouse, reacting to the verdict and telling reporters that she is grateful for the jury. “It’s been so many years, so many tears, it’s just a long time coming.”

Allred noted that the case is the first to go to trial under the Childs Victim Act, which protects adult survivors of child sex abuse to come forward and hold their abuser accountable years later. “She or he may come after you years later, and they will have a right to do so,” Allred said, speaking to reporters outside of the courthouse on Tuesday afternoon.

Cosby’s team appeared to be pleased with the outcome. When the verdict was read with no punitive damages found, Cosby’s spokesperson, Andrew Wyatt, smiled in the gallery and his team of lawyers was gleeful, as they exited the courtroom.

Huth, now 64, accused Cosby of luring her and a friend to the mansion a few days after meeting them in a park. She alleged that Cosby got her alone in a bedroom, pulled down his sweatpants and then grabbed her hand and used it to masturbate himself, forcing her into a sexual act.

On Tuesday, the jury found that Cosby did intend to cause a harmful or offensive contact with Huth and that a “sexually offensive contact” resulted, while also finding that Hugh was harmed by Cosby’s conduct. The jury concluded that any “normal person, without hesitation” would have been “disturbed, irritated, offended or injured” by Cosby’s conduct. Nine jurors voted they agreed that Cosby’s conduct was motivated by an “unnatural or abnormal sexual interest in a minor,” while three jurors did not agree.

The trial, which was held at the Santa Monica Courthouse centered on the testimony of Huth and her friend, Donna Samuelson, as well as two other women who alleged that Cosby had also sexually assaulted them in 1975, Variety reported.

Story Date: June 24, 2022