Bill Cosby calls verdict an "astonishing victory" after jury finds he sexually assaulted a 16-year-old in 1975
Cosby was found guilty and has to pay $500,000 for the assault
Yesterday, a civil jury found that disgraced comedian Bill Cosby sexually abused Judy Huth when she was 16 years old in 1975. In the wake of the verdict, Cosby’s team is calling it an “astonishing victory.”
“Yesterday actor and comedian Bill Cosby was awarded an astonishing victory by jurors in a civil trial brought by Judy Huth,” reads a statement from Cosby’s spokesperson, Andrew Wyatt. “The jurors decided to grant Judy Huth with a $500,000 verdict but voted 9-3 in favor of not rewarding Ms. Huth any punitive damages.”
It’s strange to consider a verdict which confirms Cosby sexually assaulted a minor as any sort of victory. However, the part they seem to celebrate concerns the punitive damages, which if awarded would have deemed Cosby acted with “malice, oppression, or fraud”—meaning he would have to pay a lot more money. Despite the “victory,” Cosby’s lawyer Jennifer Bonjean plans on appealing the verdict, stating Huth will “never receive a payday.”
“Within a few weeks, Attorney Jennifer Bonjean will be in Judge Craig D. Karlan court to appeal the $500,000 verdict, which means that Ms. Huth will never receive a payday from Mr. Cosby and her estimated mounting legal bills ($3 million plus dollars) with Allred, Maroko & Goldberg will be outstanding for many years to come,” the statement says. “If the jurors had awarded punitive damages to Judy Huth it would have been in the range of $10 million plus dollars, which would have been a devastating loss to our legal efforts and the Cosby family.”
Huth’s representation, the attorney and women’s rights activist Gloria Allred pushes back against Cosby’s statements, saying he “should be held and was held accountable for what he did to her.”
“Mr. Cosby’s spokesperson appears to be trying to snatch victory from the jaws of Mr. Cosby’s significant defeat,” Allred tells Variety. “Ms. Huth has no legal bills for fees with my law firm. The $3 million legal bill that Mr. Wyatt cited appears to be a figment of his imagination. In the alternative, it may be that that the $3 million amount is what Mr. Cosby had to spend to hire countless lawyers over the years in his unsuccessful effort to defend himself from Ms. Huth’s lawsuit.”
Additionally in his statement, Cosby claims to have spoken with two jurors following the verdict, who told him, “You didn’t deserve to be in this court.” According to Variety, both of these jurors voted overwhelmingly in his favor on all questions, and “did not agree with the majority of the jury on questions regarding Cosby’s conduct to be harmful or sexually offensive.”
“Mr. Cosby along with his team has always remained steadfast in his innocence and we never played in the sewer nor gutter; but most importantly, we stayed on the mountain top of ethics, integrity, truth and facts,” Cosby’s spokesperson says. “The Cosbys are thankful to those particular jurors who removed their bias and ruled on the evidence and facts of this case.”