(Reuters) – Bill Cosby was sued on Tuesday by a woman alleging he molested her in 1974 at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles when she was 15, in what is believed to be the first court case arising from a recent wave of sexual misconduct accusations against the comedian.
The five-page complaint, filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court, charged that Cosby sexually abused plaintiff Judy Huth by putting his hand down her pants, and then “taking her hand in his hand and performing a sex act on himself without her consent.”
The lawsuit said Huth was molested after she and a 16-year-old friend were served “multiple alcoholic beverages” at a house on the grounds of Cosby’s tennis club before he led the girls to the Playboy Mansion.
It was at the mansion where the plaintiff said she emerged from a bathroom to find Cosby, who according to the suit knew Huth’s age at the time, sitting on the bed and asking her to sit beside him.
“This traumatic incident, as such a tender age, has caused psychological damage and mental anguish for the plaintiff that has caused her significant problems throughout her life,” the complaint said.
A woman answering the telephone at the office of Cosby’s Los Angeles-based lawyer, Martin Singer, said the attorney was not commenting on the matter.
The suit came a day after Cosby resigned from the board of trustees of Temple University, his Philadelphia alma mater, amid a series of sexual assault accusations lodged against the comedian and television star by more than a dozen women in recent weeks.
None of those women is believed to have filed a lawsuit.
(Reporting by Steve Gorman; Editing by Peter Cooney)
