Embattled Cosby countersues accuser over sex allegations
LOS ANGELES — Bill Cosby is countersuing the woman who accuses him of sexual assault when she was 15, alleging she attempted to extort money from him.
Cosby’s legal action alleges Judith Huth’s lawyer approached Cosby’s representatives demanding $ 250,000 to stop her from filing claims. It also alleges Huth had tried to sell her story to a newspaper 10 years ago.
Cosby’s lawyer wants the court to dismiss her lawsuit and award legal costs.
In recent weeks, nearly two dozen women, several by name, have alleged the comedian and Cosby Show star sexually assaulted them, often after drugging them, in incidents spanning several decades. Huth is the second woman to allege an assault when she was underage, but the first to do so in a court filing.
Cosby has not been charged criminally and the allegations have not been proven in court. Cosby faced a civil lawsuit in 2005 from a Canadian woman, Andrea Constand, who alleged he had drugged and sexually assaulted her. They settled that lawsuit out of court in 2006.
In her civil lawsuit recently filed in Los Angeles, Huth alleges that in 1974 when she was 15 years old, Cosby plied her with alcohol and then forced her to perform a sex act on him, “without her consent.” She says Cosby had brought her and a friend, 16, to the Los Angeles Playboy Mansion and told them that if anyone asked, they were to lie and say they were 19 years old.
Huth, 55, is seeking unspecified damages for “psychological damage and mental anguish,” which she says she has only recently linked to the incident. Under California law, that would extend the statute of limitations.
Cosby’s lawyer Martin Singer has filed papers claiming Huth’s lawyer, Marc S. Strecker, approached him demanding $ 100,000, later raising it to $ 250,000, to prevent the legal case going forward.
The comedian is now seeking $ 33,000 for legal fees from Huth and Strecker.
Cosby’s court filing insists her “claims are absolutely false” and says a psychologist has not supplied relevant certification about the psychological effects being newly discovered.
The Los Angeles Police Department has said it will investigate any reports of abuse against Cosby, regardless of whether the statute of limitations for prosecution had passed.
“We don’t turn people away because things are out of statute. You come to us, especially with a sexual allegation, we will work with you,” police chief Charlie Beck told the Los Angeles Times. “We address these things seriously — and it’s not just because it’s ( Cosby).”
The accusations, which Cosby and his lawyer have called “unsubstantiated,” “fantastical” and “uncorroborated,” have led to some events on his standup tour being called off and the cancellation of projects for NBC and Netflix.