Enlarge image
Bill Cosby (stock image 2018)
Photo: Matt Rourke/AP
The civil trial against US comedian and actor Bill Cosby in Santa Monica, California has come to an end: the jury found the accused guilty of sexually abusing a then 16-year-old girl in 1975.
The crime took place at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles.
The woman made the allegations back in 2014.
There was no criminal prosecution because the incident has already expired.
Because the woman was a minor at the time, she was able to take civil action against Cosby for damages.
The jury in Santa Monica awarded the now 64-year-old $ 500,000.
Cosby's attorneys had denied the plaintiff's allegations.
He himself did not appear in court.
The civil proceedings were initially suspended when Cosby was criminally prosecuted in the US state of Pennsylvania in 2017.
More than 60 women had accused the actor of various kinds of sexual assault.
The entertainer had always rejected the allegations.
In 2018, Cosby was sentenced to several years in prison for sexual assault.
The trial was about a case from 2004. Cosby had spent around three years in prison when the highest court in Pennsylvania surprisingly overturned his conviction in June last year due to a procedural error - Cosby was released from prison.
aar/AP