Hugh Hefner Drawn Into Bill Cosby Allegations

Bill Cosby arrest photo. Hugh Hefner, By Toglenn via CC BY-SA 3.0.

Playboy founder Hugh Hefner was deposed last Wednesday in a sexual battery civil suit against Bill Cosby, according to Los Angeles civil rights attorney Gloria Allred.

Hefner’s deposition took place at the Playboy Mansion, the site where alleged Cosby victim Judy Huth says Cosby molested her when she was 15 years old.

Huth, who is represented by Allred, sued Cosby in late 2014, claiming he forced her to perform a sex act on him during a 1974 Playboy Mansion party. Huth is one of more than 50 women who have accused Cosby of sexual abuse.

This isn’t the first time Hefner, 90, has been drawn into the comedian’s ongoing legal troubles. The two were linked last Monday when former model Chloe Goins sued both Cosby and Hefner, claiming Hefner was complicit in an attack that allegedly occurred at a Playboy Mansion party in 2008.

Goins, 26, alleged that Hefner introduced her to Cosby, who she said gave her a drink that caused her to feel dizzy and sick to her stomach. She claimed that Cosby drugged and sexually assaulted her at the party.

Goins’ case was re-filed in California state court last Monday following her abandonment of the lawsuit in February after the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office declined to file criminal charges in the case. Hefner was recently added to the complaint.

Cosby is set for a criminal preliminary hearing at the Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown Tuesday on three counts of aggravated indecent assault, each of which carries a punishment of five to 10 years in prison and a $25,000 fine. Among other accusations in the case, Cosby is accused of drugging and molesting former Temple University employee Andrea Constand at his Montgomery County home in 2004. The full criminal complaint in that case is viewable here.

The hearing, originally set for March 8th, was put in limbo after Cosby’s defense team attempted in February to have the charges thrown out. Cosby’s lawyers argued that an agreement between Cosby’s late lawyer Walter Phillips and former Montgomery County prosecutor Bruce Castor precluded him from facing criminal charges in 2016, but Judge Steven O’Neill ruled otherwise. Today, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court denied an application by Cosby to stay tomorrow’s hearing.

Constand’s case is the only one to bring about criminal charges. Cosby and his lawyers have continually denied all allegations against him.

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