US comedian Bill Cosby found guilty of sexually assaulting minor in 1975

American stand-up comedian Bill Cosby sexually abused a 16-year-old girl at the Playboy Mansion in 1975, a jury in California found on Tuesday, Al Jazeera reported.

The woman, who is now 64 years old, was awarded $500,000 (Rs 3,91,61,500) in damages by the civil court.

The woman had filed a lawsuit against Cosby in December 2014. The original filing said that the assault took place in 1974 when the complainant was 15, but the timeline was later revised to 1975 when she was 16.

“It has been torture,” she said of the seven-year legal fight. “To be ripped apart, you know, thrown under the bus and backed over. This, to me, is such a big victory.”

Cosby had told the complainant and her teenage friend to tell those at Playboy mansion, the house of Playboy magazine founder, that they were 19 if they asked their age, she said, CNN reported.

On Tuesday, the jury members found that Cosby intentionally caused sexual contact with the complainant despite knowing she was below 18 years of age, Al Jazeera reported.

Cosby’s conduct was driven by unnatural or abnormal sexual interest in a minor, the jurors found.

The jury comprised eight women and four men, CNN reported.

“This case proves that you can run but you cannot hide,” the complainant’s counsel Nathan Goldberg said.

While Cosby did not testify in person in the court, he has denied all allegations of sexual misconduct through his lawyers and publicist.

More than 60 women over five decades have publicly accused the Emmy award-winning actor of sexually assaulting them.

In September 2018, Cosby was sentenced to three to 10 years in prison for sexually assaulting a woman at his home in a Philadelphia suburb in 2004.

But in June last year, the Philadelphia Supreme Court overturned the conviction and freed 84-year-old Cosby from prison. He had served just under three years in jail.