Veteran entertainer Bill Cosby will not be charged after a woman claimed the comedian molested her in the 1970s when she was 15, prosecutors in Los Angeles have said.
Their rejection of a child sexual abuse charge came about 10 days after Judy Huth spoke to detectives in a 90-minute meeting.
Los Angeles County district attorney's office rejected filing a misdemeanour charge of annoying or molesting a child under the age of 18 because the statute of limitations had passed.
Days before Ms Huth spoke to police, she accused Cosby in a civil lawsuit of forcing her to perform a sex act on him in a bedroom of the Playboy Mansion in about 1974. Cosby's lawyer said Ms Huth attempted to extort 250,000 dollars (£160,000) from the comedian before she sued and that she attempted to sell her story to a tabloid a decade ago.
Cosby is seeking a dismissal of Huth's lawsuit, arguing it is blocked by the statute of limitations.
Ms Huth told police that Cosby molested her and that she had no further contact with him after the incident, according to a summary of her allegations included with the prosecutor's decision.
In rejecting the case, prosecutors evaluated the charge Cosby would have faced in 1974. Prosecutors took into account legislative changes that extend the statute of limitations for certain crimes but found no way that Cosby could be legally prosecuted.
The statute of limitations for filing a misdemeanour case is one year; the statute of limitations for a felony sex crime committed in 1974 was three years, according to the prosecutors' analysis.
"It is our understanding that the decision not to prosecute was based on the statute of limitations and not on the merits of Ms Huth's claims," Ms Huth's lawyer, Gloria Allred, said.
Cosby's lawyer, Marty Singer, did not immediately return a message seeking comment.
Ms Huth is one of at least 15 women who have come forward since early November with claims that Cosby sexually assaulted them decades ago. Most of the women say the comedian drugged them before he assaulted them. She is one of two women suing Cosby; a second woman is suing for defamation.
Cosby has never been charged in connection with any of the allegations. A 2005 lawsuit by a Pennsylvania woman was settled before it went to trial.
Since the allegations emerged, Cosby's career has unravelled, with nearly a dozen performances cancelled in his stand-up comedy tour. NBC has said it will not move forward with a Cosby sitcom that was under development, and Netflix indefinitely postponed a special that was set to premiere last month.
Cosby's lawyers have denied some of the allegations and dismissed others as decades old and "discredited".
ends
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article