Jury Deliberations For Bill Cosby Sexual Assault Trial Begins

Jury deliberations are set to begin in the Bill Cosby sexual assault trial after closing arguments were given in California on Tuesday.

Attorneys are at war in the new Bill Cosby sexual assault trial, which the jury has began deliberations. Judy Huth, 64, has accused the comedian of sexually abusing her in the Playboy Mansion in 1975. During the time of the alleged incident, Huth would have been 17-years-old while Cosby was 37. At a California civil trial on Tuesday, Cosby's attorney Jennifer Bonjean accused Huth of not pleading her case. Bonjean is also representing R. Kelly, who is set to go on trial in Chicago on federal sex charges on August 1.

“Can you imagine how hard it is to defend a case when you start with the label of sexual predator?” Bonjean asked the jurors. “If we were just going to try people based on labels, then why have trials at all?”

Huth's attorney, Nathan Goldberg, denied Bonjean's claims, urging jurors to hold Cosby "accountable."

“You have to decide what’s right,” Goldberg told the jury, per Rolling Stone. “But please bear in mind that you have to hold Mr. Cosby wholly and completely accountable for the harm he did.”

Although Cosby is not attending the trial, the comedian denied that an encounter took place between himself and Huth in a 2015 video deposition. The video was shown to the jury, although Huth testified that Cosby exposed himself to her, forcing her to perform a sex act in a bedroom near a game room in the Playboy Mansion. Also present was during the alleged 1975 altercation was Huth's friend, then-17-year-old Donna Samuelson, who was present at the trial as a key witness.

In interviews in depositions, Huth and Samuelson claimed they were playing Donkey Kong in the mansion, although the game didn't release until 1981, sparking criticism from Bonjean.

"They both get things wrong in the exact same way,” Bonjean said. “This was in some ways the Donkey Kong defense, and it’s going to end as it should. Game over.”

Following Bonjean's statements, Goldberg had a furious rebuttal at the end of the trial.

“This is a game?” Goldberg asked. “We are not here for a game. We have a client who was sexually assaulted by Mr. Cosby in 1975.”

Following a mistrial in a separate criminal case aganist Andrea Constand, Cosby was convicted in 2018 and sentenced to three to ten years, to which he was released from prison in June 2021.