SANTA MONICA, Calif. – A woman said Friday she was 14 when Bill Cosby took her to a trailer for a 1975 film, grabbed her so she couldn’t move her arms, and kissed her.
“I was struggling to escape,” he said. “It was very shocking.”
The 61-year-old woman told her story in a public place for the first time during a civil lawsuit in Los Angeles County over the lawsuit of Judy Huth, who alleges that Cosby sexually assaulted her at the Playboy mansion. when he was about 16 years old at the same time. , in the spring of 1975.
The woman stated that she, her mother, and other family and friends were on the Los Angeles set of the movie “Let’s Do It Again,” starring Cosby and Sidney Poitier, where Cosby had invited them to act as extras. after meeting them at a tennis tournament a few months earlier.
She said Cosby invited her alone to her trailer to help her straighten the tie she was wearing for a scene.
“He grabbed me right away,” he said. “He started kissing me, all over his face, with his tongue down his throat.”
When Huth’s lawyer, Nathan Goldberg, asked her how hard Cosby was grabbing her, she replied, “Enough that I couldn’t escape.”
After about 30 seconds he was released and left.
The pictures were shown at the court of Cosby and the 14-year-old together at the tennis tournament, with him smiling and his arms around her. Other photos of Cosby and the girl with their family were shown on the set of the film. Huth would later reunite with Cosby on a different set in the same film.
Old photos from the mid-1970s have been growing at trial, one of the last legal claims against Cosby after his criminal conviction in Pennsylvania was overturned and his insurer settled other lawsuits. During the previous testimony, two photos of Cosby and Huth were shown at the Playboy mansion. Cosby has denied sexually assaulting Huth, and his lawyer says the case is about his attempt to take advantage of the images.
The woman who testified Friday said that after leaving the trailer, she did not tell anyone that she was with what happened to Cosby, who is not attending the trial.
“It was a unique opportunity in life,” he said. “I didn’t want to ruin everything for everyone.”
They spent the rest of the day appearing in a boxing scene for the film shot at the Grand Olympic Auditorium.
In his cross-examination of the woman, Cosby’s lawyer, Jennifer Bonjean, showed a picture of the film of the girl and her brother cheering on the front row next to the boxing ring.
Bonjean asked if she had been anxious at the time.
“It probably was,” the woman said.
“Probably?” Bonjean asked.
“I was anxious when I was there,” she said.
The woman said she did not talk about the incident until she told her husband years later, and told her teenage daughter years later.
Bonjean asked if several media reports with allegations in 2015 about Cosby caused her to show up and tell her story to Gloria Allred, who along with Goldberg represents both her and Huth.
The woman said a brief clip of Allred prompted her to do so after hearing Cosby’s refusal, but said she had no intention of filing a lawsuit when she sought Allred.
The woman is not part of the lawsuit, but is allowed to testify with another woman about her experiences with the Huth case.
Bonjean posed serious challenges to the other witness, Margie Shapiro, who has already told her story several times before in the media and at a press conference with Allred.
Shapiro stated that when he was 19 in November 1975, he was in the Playboy mansion with Cosby when he gave him a pill, which he took voluntarily. He said he later woke up unconscious to find her raping her.
Bonjean produced a document showing that Shapiro should be in court as a defendant the day he said he met Cosby while working at a donut shop near the set of another film he was making.
“I could have gone,” Shapiro said. “If I had to, I would have taken a short break.”
Bonjean also grilled Shapiro for a match notebook that was produced in the court that Shapiro said he got to Cosby’s house when they stopped there briefly before going to the mansion.
“18/11/1975, my night at Bill Cosby’s house,” was written in his notebook.
“After this drug and rape, did you keep a memory?” Bonjean asked.
“It was important, whether it was good or bad,” Shapiro replied.
Bonjean also challenged Shapiro for his testimony that he knew that the pill Cosby gave him was not a Quaalude, a popular depressive in the 1970s, because of the coding engraved on it.
He noted that in a 2016 interview with police he had said the pill looked like a Quaalude and that Cosby told him it was one.
“Either I was wrong or the detective was wrong,” Shapiro said.
One of the jurors, many of whom were not born in the 1970s, raised his hand and asked the judge to clarify what a Quaalude was. Shapiro compared him to Valium.
Shapiro said he went to look for Cosby’s house days later, but did not find it.
Bonjean asked if it was true that she was upset because Cosby had refused to take her to the Playboy mansion, and that she and Cosby had consensual sex at home and did not like how he treated her afterwards. .
“I was upset because she raped me,” she said.
The Associated Press does not normally name people who say they have been sexually abused unless they speak out publicly, as Huth and Shapiro have done on several occasions.
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