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 The accuser's attorney, Gloria Allred, said the decision cleared
the way for litigation brought by Judy Huth, now in her 50s, to
proceed, and that she intended to take Cosby's sworn deposition
within the next 30 days.
"We are looking forward to Mr. Cosby answering questions under oath
at his deposition," Allred said. "It's a very big victory."
There was no immediate response from Cosby or his lawyers, who have
consistently denied allegations of sexual misconduct lodged against
the 78-year-old performer.
But the legal setback for Cosby came as his defense team mounted a
new public relations blitz on his behalf.
In a round of interviews with various news outlets, including ABC's
"Good Morning America" and the New York Times, Cosby lawyer Monique
Pressley said the media have distorted deposition testimony made
public this month from a separate sexual assault lawsuit Cosby
settled in 2006.
Pressley, a newly hired Cosby attorney based in Washington, said
that while the deposition may have proved embarrassing to Cosby,
nothing in his sworn statements marked an admission of criminal
wrongdoing or of sexual encounters that were anything but
consensual.
Huth is one of more than 40 women who have come forward in the past
year to say that they were raped or molested by Cosby after he plied
them with drugs or alcohol in incidents dating back decades.
The complaint filed by Huth against Cosby is one of at least four
pending civil lawsuits stemming from such accusations, but Allred
said Huth's is the only one seeking damages for the alleged sexual
misconduct itself.
The others are defamation suits whose principal causes of action
allege the entertainer falsely branded his accusers as liars by
denying that he ever sexually assaulted them.
In addition, Los Angeles police are conducting a criminal
investigation into a complaint brought against Cosby, an LAPD
spokesman confirmed on Wednesday. He declined to give details.
Cosby has never been charged.
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Los Angeles County prosecutors declined last year to bring a
criminal case against him over Huth's allegations, saying the matter
dated back too far under California's statute of limitations.
Allred said the statute is more forgiving of civil complaints of
childhood sexual abuse, allowing for a claim of repressed
psychological injury that is discovered by the accuser in the last
three years.
Cosby's attorneys had sought dismissal of Huth's lawsuit on
procedural grounds, arguing among other things that she lacked
required certification from a mental health professional to support
her claims. They also said in court papers that Huth sued Cosby only
after she failed to extort money from him to buy her silence.
A Los Angeles Superior Court judge ruled against Cosby, and a state
appeals court refused to hear the case in May. On Wednesday, the
state Supreme Court did likewise, a decision that Allred said leaves
Cosby no further legal recourse for blocking the lawsuit.
She said she expects to take Cosby's deposition in Massachusetts,
where the performer resides.
The decision comes weeks after a federal judge in Philadelphia
unsealed excerpts of a deposition Cosby gave in a separate sexual
assault case he settled with a former Temple University employee,
Andrea Constand, for an undisclosed sum in 2006.
The excerpts included Cosby's admission under oath that he had
obtained Quaaludes, the brand name for a sedative widely used as a
recreational drug in the 1970s, with the intent of giving the pills
to young women in order to have sex with them.
(Reporting by Steve Gorman; Editing by Eric Beech and Ken Wills)
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