Crime
Jury Finds Cosby Guilty of Assaulting 16-Year-Old at Playboy Mansion
Comedian Bill Cosby sexually assaulted a teenager at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles in 1975, a jury has found.
Judy Huth testified to the civil trial that Cosby, 84, had forced her to perform a sex act on him at the venue when she was 16 years old.
The jury also ruled that Cosby must pay Ms Huth, who is now 64, $500,000 (£407,000) in damages.
Less than a year ago, Cosby walked free from prison after his sexual assault conviction was thrown out.
More than 50 women have come forward with abuse allegations against the man once known as “America’s Dad”, charges he denies.
The civil case against Cosby in Santa Monica, California, was the first to go to trial and represented one of the last remaining legal actions against him. Filed in 2014, it was delayed for years by Cosby’s criminal proceedings.
Ms Huth’s suit alleged that he brought her and another underage friend to the infamous mansion, lured her to a bedroom and forced himself on her.
When she resisted, he forced her to perform a sex act on him, she testified.
In tears on the stand, Ms Huth told the court she felt “mad, duped and foolish” after the incident, as her lawyers presented a photo of her and Cosby inside the mansion.
Cosby was not required to appear in person at the trial and never did, but the court saw a 2015 deposition by Ms Huth’s attorneys, in which the comedian said he did not remember her and would not have pursued sex with a minor.
Lawyers for Cosby sought to poke holes in Ms Huth’s claims, noting she had initially said she was 15 at the time of the incident, but changed that detail weeks before the trial.
They claimed Ms Huth had offered her photo with Cosby to tabloids and others in search of a payout.
Jurors were also shown a videotaped 2016 deposition of late Playboy founder Hugh Hefner – a close friend of Cosby in the 1970s – who said it would have been “very unusual” for underage girls to be allowed inside the mansion.
Known to millions for his portrayal of TV dad Cliff Huxtable on The Cosby Show, the comic has faced accusations of sexual assault, misconduct and rape stretching back to the mid-1960s.
In 2018, he was convicted of drugging and molesting a woman at his home in 2004 and sentenced to three to 10 years in prison.
The conviction, however, was overturned by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court last year. He was released from prison after serving nearly three years.
The Anambra State Police Command has foiled a cult initiation ceremony in Nawfia, Njikoka Local Government Area of the state.
Spokesperson for the Command, SP Tochukwu Ikenga, disclosed this in a statement issued on Tuesday in Awka.
According to Ikenga, the operation was carried out by police operatives around 9:30am on June 15, leading to the arrest of six suspects at the scene.
Recovered during the raid were one Jojef pump action gun, two cartridges, and a golden-coloured Lexus SUV with registration number ATN 202 AE. Other items found include two cutlasses, two scissors, a cap bearing the inscription of the Supreme Vikings Confraternity, charms, and substances suspected to be hard drugs.
“They are currently undergoing police interrogation to get more insight into their modus operandi, after which the case will be charged to court on the conclusion of the investigations,” Ikenga stated.
The police spokesperson reassured residents of the command’s unwavering commitment to fighting cultism and other related crimes across the state.
An Ikeja Magistrates’ Court, Lagos, on Wednesday, remanded two persons, Olaitan Fasasi and Kehinde Tobiloba in a correctional facility over alleged attempted murder.
Fasasi, 40, and Tobiloba, 26, whose addresses were not provided, are being charged with conspiracy, attempted murder and membership of a secret society.
The Magistrate, Mr L.A Owolabi, did not take the plea of the defendants for want of jurisdiction.
Owolabi directed the police to forward the case file to the Director of Public Prosecution for legal advice.
He thereafter adjourned the case until May 31 for mention.
The Prosecutor, Josephine Ikhayere, told the court that the defendants committed the offences at about 5.02p.m on Feb. 15, at Mushin, Lagos.
She said that Fasasi, Tobiloba and others now at large, attempted to commit murder by shooting at a resident, Alfred Ademola.
“They armed themselves with a locally made gun. They belong to Eiye Confraternity, a group proscribed by law,”, she said.
Ikhayere said that the offences contravened Sections 230(1) and 411 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2012.
He said that the actions of the defendants also contravened Section 2(3)(a)(b)(c)(d) of the unlawful societies and Cultism Law of Lagos State Law.
An Area Court in Jos, on Tuesday, sentenced one Jeptha John, to three months imprisonment for stealing a Redmi mobile phone valued at N165, 000.
The judge, Shawomi Bokkos, sentenced the John after he pleaded guilty to the offence.
The judge, however, gave the convict an option to pay N20, 000 fine and N50, 000 restitution to the complainant.
Bokkos said that if the convict defaulted in paying the restitution, three months should be added to his sentence to make it six months imprisonment.
Earlier, the police prosecutor, Insp Monday Dabit, told the court that the case was reported at the B Division Police Station, Jos, on Dec. 1, 2024, by Ms Nerat Danjuma.
He said that the complainant alleged that the defendant trespassed into her house and stole her mobile phone valued at N165, 000.
The prosecutor further told the court that the offence contravened the Plateau State Penal Code, Law of Northern Nigeria.
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