Bill Cosby Sexually Abused Judy Huth In The 1970s, Civil Jury Decides – Update

Update at 3:39: (Added comments from Gloria Alred + Cosby’s rep) Bill Cosby sexually assaulted a minor in the mid-1970s, a civil jury has ruled today.

After just three days of deliberation and relocation, the Santa Monica Council announced its verdict against the defendants this afternoon. cosby show Creative and stellar. Plaintiff Judy Hutt, her legal team, and Cosby’s defense team, who forwarded their decision to Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Craig Carlan, were present in the crowded courtroom, and a 12-member jury also awarded Hutt $500,000 in damages.

Harvey Weinstein’s Los Angeles sex crime trial begins in October

However, the eight women and four men juries did not receive any punitive damages.

Cosby was not in the courtroom when the message was read.

Cosby, who was entitled to the fifth order against the defendant, did not testify at the two-week trial, unlike Hutt. The actor’s video statement from 2015 was presented to the court and the jury during the trial. 84-year-old Kosby, who was convicted of raping Andrea Constand in 2018 for sex crimes that was released by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in June 2021, is almost certain to appeal today’s decision, according to sources.

The man once referred to as “America’s Father” was sued by Judy Hutt for sexual assault and more in 2014. Plaintiff claimed that Cosby’s attack on the Playboy Mansion occurred in the mid-1970s, when he was a teenager. Hutt first claimed that the attack took place in 1974 when he was 15 years old, but the plaintiff later moved the date to 1975, when he was 16 years old.

Cosby’s representative, at least publicly, did not take a negative view of today’s decision.

“It was a big win for us because they were looking at (sic) millions of dollars,” Andrew White said of the $500,000 loss on Tuesday. “This amount does not cover legal fees and we will appeal this matter. However, Mr. Cosby will not pay the fine.”

Gloria Alred expressed her pride and triumph:

First of all, we would like to thank our members of the jury for their award of compensation to our client, Ms. Huth. The verdict is $500,000. Second, we thank our client, Judy Hutt, for her courage and many sacrifices to bring justice to this matter. We are honored to represent you. Third, I want to thank my partners, Nathan Goldberg and John West, for their outstanding counsel and counsel in this case, and I want the world to know that I am delighted to have been my legal partners for all these years. Fourth, I want to thank all the women who have raised their voices and refused to remain silent over the years against the injustice and sexual violence of powerful men.

“Real change, long-term change, happens gradually,” said the late US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Today, our client, Judy Hutt, won real change after seven and a half years of fighting Bill Cosby, step by step, and the jury found that Mr. Cosby sexually assaulted her as a child and must respond. for him.

We are proud of our victory over Miss Hutt and Bill Cosby.

Earlier, 14:42: Bill Cosby may soon find out if he will decide before a California jury that he sexually assaulted a minor.

For the second time in less than a week, jurors in Santa Monica told Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Craig Carlan that they had reached a verdict in Judy Hutt’s civil lawsuit against a man once known as “America’s Father.” If all goes according to plan, the verdict will be read in court in an hour.

84-year-old Cosby Hutt is not serving a prison sentence, unlike the criminal case he filed for raping Andrea Constant in 2004 and acquittal in 2018. I’m still embarrassed cosby show If this sentence is served against him, its creator could end up with a millionaire’s compensation.

Hattie, who first sued Cosby for sexual assault and two other allegations in 2014, alleges that a previously arrested comedian assaulted her at the Playboy Palace in the mid-1970s, when she was 16. “Mr Cosby will be fully acquitted after the jury has heard the evidence and examined the many inconsistent statements made by Ms Hutt,” the defendant’s representative said for years.

“You have to decide what’s right,” Hutt’s attorney, Nathan Goldberg, said in his closing arguments against the jury last week. “But remember that you must hold him accountable for the damage caused by Mr. Cosby.”

Goldberg Olred, Morocco, and Goldberg’s partner, Gloria Olred, was in court every day and during the jury trial.

Initially, when the date of the alleged incident occurred in 1974 and more recently changed to 1975, Emotional Hutt gave us clear details about the sexual assault allegation during Cosby’s testimony. Hutt’s lawyers provided photos of Cosby and Hutt together, taken by Hutt’s friend Donna Samuelson, although the absent-minded Cosby said he had never met Hut and the actor’s legal team mocked him for changing the year of the incident. In the persuasive testimony of Hutt and Samuelson, Cosby’s lawyers said the conflict between Hutt and his client took place years after Hutt was already a minor.

Cosby’s lawyers have also tried to entrap Hattie, claiming that she has sent photos to tabloids and others in exchange for large sums in the past.

Cosby himself did not testify at the trial. But his video from 2015 was played in the courtroom.

Although assault charges were barred during criminal prosecution, Hutt could sue under California Cosby law, which provides for a statute of limitations if the defendant suffered abuse as a minor and didn’t know exactly what had happened until he did so. Older.

In this sense, what hinders the jury trial and trial on Friday, when the verdict seems imminent, is the issue of compensation.

After nearly two days of closed deliberation, the 12-member jury returned to the courtroom in the afternoon to announce that it had decided eight of the nine questions before it in the form of a verdict. To state quite conclusively that the verdict was against Cosby, the only question left unanswered by the jurors was whether the defendant acted “with malice, coercion or fraud”, in which case punitive damages could be applied to Hut.

This is where things get complicated and unprecedented, both in court and in final form.

From the very beginning of the trial, Carlan was well aware that she had to leave the trial on June 20 because one of the jurors was already involved. The judge promised to abide by that deadline, which means the alternative sits with 11 other jurors. Monday. It also meant, in Karlan’s words, that the new jury would “have to start from scratch.”

In cases where jurors have already seen many questions posed to the judge and some personal disagreements between the two jurors, the rescheduling probably won’t resonate as much as Karlan believes: in a civil case like this, the verdict doesn’t matter. , 12 jurors The judge only needs to agree nine times for a verdict to be binding. So, even though the newly seated jury needed a hit or two to speed things up, things progressed pretty quickly.

Adding to the jury drama that made the final minutes of Friday’s trial even more unusual was the fact that a partial verdict was returned as the Santa Monica courthouse would be closed for the weekend. While Karlan pondered over Cosby’s team’s concerns about making a partial decision, time and money were ultimately not on her side.

Hearing from a court official that it’s about 4:30 p.m., the judge risks costing his aides, who will command the courtroom, overtime if the sheriff reverses a nearly final verdict. Finally, he postponed the decision until this week. Recently, the jury was detained again with questions about Cosby’s possible misconduct and possible punitive damages.

In 2018, a Pennsylvania judge sentenced him to up to 10 years in prison for raping former Temple University employee Constant after a second trial. The comedian’s revolving door and his lawyers, seven Keystone State Supreme Court judges, ruled last summer that then-Mongomery District Attorney Bruce Castor did not convict Cosby in 2005 after an investigation into Constant’s initial claim.

Immediately losing its label of sexual predator, Cosby cannot be tried again on the same charges.

On March 7 of this year, the United States Supreme Court refused to hear the case, as requested by Montgomery District Attorney Kevin Steele. This effectively ended Constant’s case due to all the new and notable circumstances.

More than 60 women said Cosby had been using drugs for decades, hitting them with a combination of pills and alcohol similar to Constand’s. Some of the women attended Cosby’s two criminal trials, the 2018 criminal trial, and Hutton’s trial last month.

Hutt’s allegations are the first civil action to appear in court on sexual assault charges against Cosby.