By ANDREW DALTON
SANTA MONICA, Calif. (AP) — Sixteen-year-old Judy Huth was deeply distraught minutes after Invoice Cosby is alleged to have sexually abused her on a day in 1975 on the Playboy Mansion, her greatest buddy on the time testified Wednesday.
“She stated ‘I wish to go, I wanna depart,’ she was crying,” stated Donna Samuelson, then 17 and now 64, the primary witness in a Los Angeles County civil trial stemming from Huth’s lawsuit in opposition to the 85-year-old comic and actor.
Samuelson, who had been wanting ahead to spending the remainder of the afternoon and night on the mansion, was indignant along with her buddy, till Huth defined herself.
“She stated Invoice Cosby had tried to have intercourse along with her,” Samuelson stated.
Huth informed Samuelson that in a bed room off a recreation room on the mansion grounds the place the three had been hanging out and enjoying pool and arcade video games, Cosby had tried to place his hand down her tight pants, then uncovered himself, forcing Huth to the touch him sexually, testified Samuelson, who had been distracted enjoying a recreation and was oblivious to what had occurred.
Samuelson shot two pictures of Cosby and Huth collectively that day which are central to the trial, and have been proven continually to the jury on day one. A clearly recognizable Cosby has a beard and purple beanie.
A lawyer for Cosby known as the intercourse abuse allegations “an entire and utter fabrication” and stated the images are the one motive the case exists.
“That is a few plan hatched by Judy Huth and her estranged buddy Donna Samuelson primarily based on some pictures,” lawyer Jennifer Bonjean stated in her opening assertion shortly earlier than Samuelson took the stand. “You’ll be taught Judy Huth has been making an attempt to money in on these pictures for many years.”
The trial represents one of many final remaining authorized claims in opposition to Cosby after his Pennsylvania felony conviction was thrown out by an appeals court docket final yr, and his insurer settled many different lawsuits in opposition to his will. He’s not attending the trial, and won’t testify, however components of a video deposition he gave shortly after the 2014 lawsuit was filed might be performed.
Samuelson testified that Cosby had met the 2 ladies on a movie set at a Los Angeles space park a number of days earlier, and invited them to come back to a membership the place he can be enjoying tennis, then took them as a shock to the mansion, telling them if anybody requested their ages to say they have been 18, however nobody did.
By the point Huth informed her story to Samuelson, Cosby had left to attend an occasion with plans to return hours later, leaving the ladies behind.
Samuelson stated she requested her distraught buddy if she wished to go to the police or inform anybody else, Huth emphatically answered no. She satisfied Huth to remain on the mansion.
“I assumed it could calm her all the way down to go swimming and stuff,” Samuelson testified. “I stated, ‘We’ll depart as quickly as he will get again.’”
She stated the mansion’s butler introduced the ladies swimsuits in no matter fashion, measurement and shade they requested for, they usually frolicked within the mansion’s well-known grotto pool and ordered tequila sunrises. Then they’d dinner within the mansion, sitting throughout from actor Peter Lawford.
They have been tinkering on a grand piano when Cosby returned and put his arm round a horrified Huth. The ladies promptly received as much as depart, Samuelson stated, however simply then Playboy head Hugh Hefner and his journal mannequin girlfriend Barbi Benton walked in, and Cosby launched them earlier than they left.
Bonjean seized on the ladies’ staying on the mansion throughout her opening.
“Boy did Judy and Donna get pleasure from themselves. They stayed for 12 hours,” Bonjean stated. “There’s no typical response to a traumatic occasion however partying on the Playboy Mansion doesn’t appear constant.”
However in his opening assertion, Huth’s lawyer Nathan Goldberg stated within the months that adopted, she was very a lot emotionally affected by the trauma, smoking pot in nice quantities, stepping into troubled relationships and affected by anxiousness.
“She was now not the happy-go-lucky woman she had been,” Goldberg stated.
The Related Press doesn’t usually identify individuals who say they’ve been sexually abused, except they arrive ahead publicly, as Huth has.
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Observe AP Leisure Author Andrew Dalton on Twitter: https://twitter.com/andyjamesdalton
