The entertainer is said to have abused the woman in 1975. There was no criminal case against Cosby because the case was already statute-barred. The plaintiff has now been awarded damages of half a million dollars.
The US comedian and actor Bill Cosby (84) has again been found guilty of sexual abuse. A jury of eight women and four men on Tuesday found it proven that Cosby molested the now 64-year-old plaintiff at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles when she was 16.
The civil trial, which opened in early June, took place in a court in Santa Monica, California. Cosby did not appear himself, but had his defense attorney dismiss the allegations. The jury awarded the plaintiff $500,000, which corresponds to about 475,000 euros. The woman made the allegations back in 2014. There was no criminal prosecution because the incident was already statute-barred. Because the woman was a minor at the time, she can still take civil action against Cosby with claims for damages.
The civil case was stayed when Cosby faced criminal charges in Pennsylvania in 2017. More than 60 women had accused the actor of various kinds of sexual assault. The entertainer had always rejected the allegations. In 2018, Cosby was sentenced to several years in prison for sexual assault. The trial involved a case from 2004. Cosby had spent around three years in prison when the Pennsylvania highest court surprisingly overturned his conviction in June last year due to a procedural error. Cosby walked free.