New York Daily News

Cos ‘pounced’ on teen at Playboy Mansion: accuser

- BY KATE FELDMAN

Bill Cosby “pounced” on a 16-year-old girl and sexually assaulted her at the Playboy Mansion in 1975, the accuser’s lawyer alleged in court Wednesday.

Nearly a year after being freed from prison, the fallen funnyman is facing yet another sexual assault allegation in a court case that kicked off in California on Wednesday. This one is civil, not criminal.

The embattled 85-year-old comedian and actor did not appear in the Santa Monica courtroom to face Judy Huth, who claims that she and a friend met Cosby while he was in Los Angeles in 1975 to shoot “Let’s Do It Again” with Sidney Poitier.

Cosby “couldn’t have been friendlier,” attorney Nathan Goldberg said.

A few days later, Goldberg said, Cosby invited Huth and a 17-year-old friend to the Playboy mansion.

Huth came out of a bathroom to find Cosby sitting on a bed, patting the spot next to him for

Huth to sit.

“After she sat down, he pounced,” Goldberg said.

Cosby tried to put his hand down her pants, then exposed himself, forcing Huth to touch him sexually, Goldberg said.

Huth, now 64, filed a civil lawsuit against Cosby in 2014 seeking financial damages, and a police report, but no criminal charges were ever brought.

Cosby’s lawyers have admitted the pair met at Hugh Hefner’s sprawling home after a photo already confirmed their meeting, but they claim that Huth was 18, not 16, at the time.

They contend there was no sexual abuse and say that Huth’s recollecti­ons of the day are different from that of her friend, Donna Samuelson.

In opening statements Wednesday, Goldberg described Cosby (photo) as a “star” who took advantage of a teenager.

“He has a sense of entitlemen­t, and no fear,” Goldberg said. “He has a sense of invincibil­ity.”

The trial, likely to last about two weeks, is one of the last for Cosby, who has been accused of sexual assault by multiple women dating back to the 1960s and crossing states.

In 2018, he was found guilty of three counts of aggravated indecent assault against Andrea Constand, a former college and Canadian national team basketball player, for drugging and assaulting her in his Philadelph­ia home.

He was sentenced to three to 10 years in state prison, but was released in June 2021 and had his conviction overturned when the Pennsylvan­ia Supreme Court ruled the district attorney had broken his word when he promised not to file criminal charges.

Huth’s trial was delayed more than eight years as Cosby sat through two other trials and the COVID-19 pandemic held up court proceeding­s.

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