A civil trial jury in Santa Monica found Bill Cosby guilty of sexually abusing a 16-year-old girl at Playboy Mansion in 1975 and granted her $500,000.
After the jury was gridlocked earlier in the afternoon, the panel’s judgment in favor of Judy Huth was read around 3:30 p.m. local time.
Huth, now 64, accused Cosby of coercing her into having sex with him at the mansion when she was only 16 years old.
Cosby did not appear in court or testify, and he vehemently denies the allegation.
The trial appeared to be ending on Friday, with jurors answering 8 of the 9 questions posed to them.
However, because the judge had initially planned to dismiss one of the jurors by June 17, deliberations restarted on Monday with a replacement.
The reviled former icon once known as “America’s Dad” did not testify or show up in Los Angeles County Court during the trial, but in a sworn affidavit in 2015 that was played for jurors, he rejected any accusations of sexual contact with Huth.
The decision concludes an often peculiar trial that also included 10 days of testimony, heated exchanges between Huth and Cosby’s attorneys, and a botched attempt by the actor’s team of lawyers to declare a mistrial.
