Bill Cosby's request to review a sexual assault case was denied by the California Supreme Court on Wednesday, July 22, clearing the way for alleged victim Judy Huth to proceed to litigation with her civil suit against the comedian.
Huth filed a sexual battery lawsuit against Cosby in December, claiming that the comic molested her in a bedroom of the Playboy Mansion more than 40 years ago, when she was 15 years old. Her suit alleged that Huth and a friend met Cosby for drinks at a tennis club in 1974.
Afterward, she was invited by Cosby to Hugh Hefner's Playboy Mansion, where the actor allegedly forced the teen to perform a "sex act on [him] without her consent." According to Huth's suit, she has been suffering from "severe and extreme emotional distress as a result.
Days after she filed the suit, Cosby's lawyer Marty Singer filed papers claiming that Huth, now 56, tried to extort the Cosby Show lead nearly 10 years ago.
CNN reported that the California Supreme Court's decision to deny the embattled actor's petition allows the suit to go to trial. This also means that Huth's attorney, Gloria Allred, will take the comic's deposition under oath.
Allred told reporters on Wednesday that the court's decision was a "major victory," and that she will question Cosby, 78, within the next month.
His latest legal setback comes in the wake of the New York Times and the Associated Press obtaining copies of his previously hidden court deposition from 2006, and sharing the information with the public this past week. In his statements made under oath, Cosby admitted to paying off women and detailed his seduction tactics.
"I take her hair and I pull it back and I have her face like this," Cosby said of one of his alleged victims, Andrea Constand. "And I’m talking to her …And I talked to her about relaxing, being strong. And I said to her, come in, meaning her body."
As dozens of women have come forward accusing the comic of sexual misconduct, Cosby has maintained his innocence. "I am a man," he said in his decade-old deposition. "The only way you will hear about who I had sex with is from the person I had it with."
