Lawyers for a woman who filed a sexual battery lawsuit against Bill Cosby said Friday they will push to take a second deposition of the comedian and fight defense claims that the law allowing her case to move forward is unconstitutional.
In a hearing before Judy Huth’s attorneys held a news conference, Santa Monica Superior Court Judge Craig D. Karlan lifted the stay on discovery in the case except for Cosby’s deposition and set up a roadmap for the lawyers to follow before trial of the case, which is scheduled for next April 18.
Huth, who lives in the gated community of Canyon Lake in Riverside County, sued Cosby in 2014. She alleges that in 1974, when she was 15 years old, Cosby invited her and a 16-year-old friend into a house where he convinced her to drink a beer for every game of pool he won. Huth alleges he later took her and her friend to the Playboy Mansion, where he molested her in a bedroom.
Cosby was previously convicted in a retrial in Pennsylvania that he drugged and molested Temple University employee Andrea Constand and sentenced in 2018 to 10 years in prison, but that state’s Supreme Court in June overturned the conviction after finding he had obtained a nonprosecution agreement from a prior prosecutor.
Huth’s lead attorney, Gloria Allred, said she and her legal team believe the second deposition of Cosby, which Karlan previously granted but put on hold pending the outcome of the Pennsylvania case, should now go forward.
She said that although Cosby’s attorneys say their client would cite the Fifth Amendment and refuse to testify, there is no basis for such a move because there is no additional prosecution in Los Angeles.
Allred said that the deposition should go forward no later than by the time the Pennsylvania prosecutors have failed to file a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court asking for review of the Pennsylvania high court’s decision. She said the contents of the first deposition were sealed and she could not talk about the contents.
ln his ruling in the Huth case, Karlan stayed Cosby’s deposition at least until Sept. 30, when the next hearing is scheduled so lawyers can outline issues in the case and explain to the judge how and when they should be addressed.
Allred said Cosby’s lawyers also have said they will challenge as unconstitutional the recently passed statute in California which allows those who allege that they are victims of child sexual abuse to file civil lawsuits many years later, even though they agree the statute applies to the Huth case.
If Cosby’s lawyers are successful in getting the statute struck down, the effect would “inflict significant harm on many child abuse victims,” Allred said.
