Cosby accuser challenged over timing of trauma, depression
NORRISTOWN, PA - SEPTEMBER 25: Actor/stand-up comedian Bill Cosby arrives for sentencing for his sexual assault trial at the Montgomery County Courthouse on September 25, 2018 in Norristown, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Gilbert Carrasquillo/Getty Images)
SANTA MONICA, Calif. - An attorney for Bill Cosby challenged an accuser of the actor and comedian Wednesday over her struggles with depression, suggesting they were clearly not spurred by Cosby sexually abusing her when she was 16 in 1975, as her lawsuit alleges.
Judy Huth filed the lawsuit in 2014, saying that her son turning 15 that same year brought back painful memories of her sexual assault, and brought on subsequent depression. Huth, now 64, said she initially remembered being 15 when Cosby forced her to perform a sex act at the Playboy Mansion, though she recently determined she was 16.
Cosby attorney Jennifer Bonjean showed Huth medical records from 2011, 2012 and 2013 in which her doctor assessed her with major depression and prescribed her anti-depressants.
"We can agree that you suffered from major depression before your son turned 15?" Bonjean asked Huth, who was on the witness stand in a Los Angeles County courthouse for a second day in the civil trial.
"I don't know that I did," Huth said.
"So medical records showing that would be inaccurate?" Bonjean asked.
Huth repeatedly answered that and similar questions by saying she did not remember dealing with depression or taking medications for it during those years, but acknowledged that the documents in front of her said she had.
Bonjean also pointed to different potential causes for Huth's depression.
"You had a long history of trauma in your life that had nothing to do with Mr. Cosby, right?" Bonjean asked.
"Nothing as bad as that, that's for sure," Huth answered.
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Huth testified to living in an abusive home with her mother as a child until age 10 when she moved in with her father and things got far better. She also said her grandfather attempted to molest her when she was four, and she was involved in a horrific car accident in which a family of five was killed.
Huth told jurors Tuesday that Cosby in the spring of 1975 had taken her and a friend to the Playboy Mansion, and in a bedroom adjacent to a game room had tried to put his hand down her pants, then exposed himself, forcing Huth to touch him sexually. Cosby has denied abusing Huth.
Huth's lawsuit says she suffered psychological damage from Cosby's abuse from 2014 when she began having anxiety over it and flashbacks to it, until 2018 when he was sent to prison in the Pennsylvania criminal case.
Her attorney Nathan Goldberg asked her Wednesday, "Did you know when you were 16 that what Mr. Cosby did caused you psychological injury?"
"No," Huth answered. "I was just a kid."
The trial represents one of the last remaining legal claims against the 85-year-old Cosby after his criminal conviction was thrown out by an appeals court and he was freed from prison last year, and his insurer settled many other lawsuits against his will. He is not attending the trial, and will not testify, but short segments of a video deposition he gave in 2014 will be played.
The Associated Press does not normally name people who say they have been sexually abused, unless they come forward publicly, as Huth has.