SANTA MONICA, Calif. (AP) – The stage for Bill Cosby’s next legal challenge shifts to California with a hearing scheduled Tuesday to set a trial date in a lawsuit accusing him of sexually assaulting a teen at the Playboy Mansion more than 40 years ago.
Judy Huth accused the comedian of forcing her to perform a sex act on him in a bedroom at the mansion around 1974 when she was 15.
The hearing comes less than two weeks after a Pennsylvania jury deadlocked on criminal charges against Cosby.
A mistrial was declared June 17 on charges Cosby drugged and molested Andrea Constand, the former Temple University director of women’s basketball, at his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004. Cosby said the encounter was consensual.
Cosby’s legal team declared victory after the mistrial, though Pennsylvania prosecutors vowed to retry him.