Bill Cosby has denied sexually abusing a teenager at the Playboy Mansion in the mid-1970s, giving evidence for the first time during a civil trial.
The 84-year-old actor and comedian appeared in a video testimony played for jurors at the end of the sixth day of the lawsuit.
Judy Huth, now 64, is suing Cosby, alleging he sexually assaulted her when she was aged 15 or 16. He is not attending the hearing in person due to glaucoma that has left him blind, his representatives have said.
Image: Cosby’s accuser Judy Huth pictured outside court on the opening day of the trial
The trial in Los Angeles is one of the last remaining legal claims against Cosby after a criminal conviction in Pennsylvania was thrown out by an appeals court and he was released from prison in 2021, and his insurer settled many other lawsuits against his will.
In his video testimony, Cosby denied sexually assaulting Ms Huth and mainly gave short answers when questioned.
Asked whether he had tried to put his hand down her pants, Mr Cosby quickly and clearly told the court, “no”.
He was then asked by her lawyer if he exposed himself and forced her to touch him sexually, and again replied “no” in the same manner.
“No,” was also his response when asked if it was possible that these things happened but he could not remember them.
Cosby said he did not remember meeting Ms Huth or her friend Donna Samuelson, who each testified earlier in the trial, saying they met him on a film set and then met up with him at a tennis club a few days later. They told the court they briefly visited a house he was staying at and then went with him to the Playboy Mansion.
Asked whether being shown pictures of himself with Ms Huth at the mansion would change his response about whether he knew them, Mr Cosby said it would mean little.
Image: Cosby’s criminal conviction in Pennsylvania was overturned in 2021
In another clip shown in court, Ms Huth’s lawyer Nathan Goldberg asked Cosby if he would knowingly have relationships with girls who were under 18 in the mid-1970s.
“No,” he responded. However, he also said “no” when asked whether he would make sure those he sought sexual relationships with were 18.
“What is the word ‘know’, that I ‘know’ somebody?” Mr Cosby said to the court in one of just a few long replies in the video. “Or that I met someone? Or that, while at Disneyland I met a hundred people and took pictures with them?
“Or that, while I’m at the airport (where) I’m sitting, waiting to catch a plane and people come up and sit next to me, sit on me, put your arm around me, say hello and take a picture that later might show up somewhere somehow and that I know this person? No, sir.”
He added: “It doesn’t mean that they were with me or that I was even with them.”
Image: Lawyer Jennifer Bonjean is representing Cosby
Two pictures that Ms Samuelson says she took of Cosby with Ms Huth at the Playboy Mansion have been shown several times during the trial.
Jennifer Bonjean, representing Cosby, has acknowledged that he took the girls there but repeatedly denied that any sexual interaction took place.
Ms Huth’s lawsuit states she suffered psychological damage from Cosby’s alleged abuse from 2014, when she started having anxiety and flashbacks, until 2018, when he was sent to prison in the Pennsylvania criminal case.
She has told the court she did not realise the alleged abuse had caused her “psychological injury” at the time, saying: “I was just a kid.”
