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    Stella Stevens, Hollywood Bombshell Who Yearned for More, Dies at 84

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    She starred alongside the likes of Elvis Presley and Jerry Lewis. But she wanted to direct and write, and she felt held back by industry sexism.Stella Stevens, whose turn as an A-list actress in 1960s Hollywood placed her alongside sex symbols like Brigitte Bardot, Ann-Margret and Raquel Welch, but who came to resent the male-dominated industry that she felt thwarted her ambitions to be more than a pretty face, died on Friday at a hospice facility in Los Angeles. She was 84.Her son, the actor and director Andrew Stevens, said the cause was Alzheimer’s disease.Ms. Stevens was among the last stars to emerge from Hollywood’s studio system, an arrangement that guaranteed her work but, she often said, also limited her creative aspirations. She won a Golden Globe in the “most promising newcomer” category for her role in “Say One for Me” (1959), a musical comedy starring Bing Crosby and Debbie Reynolds, but felt coerced into joining the cast of “Girls! Girls! Girls!” (1962), an empty Elvis Presley vehicle.Like Ms. Welch, who died on Wednesday, Ms. Stevens was ambivalent, if not outright indignant, about being cast as a Hollywood sex symbol. She described herself as introverted and bookish, and she sought to work with auteurs like John Cassavetes, who cast her as the female lead in “Too Late Blues,” his 1961 drama about a jazz musician (played by Bobby Darin).”I wanted to be a writer-director,” she told the film scholar Michael G. Ankerich in 1994. “All of a sudden I got sidetracked into being a sexpot. Once I was a ‘pot,’ there was nothing I could do. There was nothing legitimate I could do.”She worked with many of the top directors and actors of the 1960s. She starred as the love interest of the title character, a timid college professor who undergoes a personality transformation, in “The Nutty Professor” (1963), which Jerry Lewis wrote, directed and starred in; “The Courtship of Eddie’s Father” (1963), a romantic comedy directed by Vincent Minnelli; and “The Silencers” (1966), a spy spoof starring Dean Martin.In between, though, she had to take a series of mediocre roles in mediocre movies, and critics came to view her as a star who was perpetually kept away from realizing her full potential.From left, Shelley Winters, Carol Lynley, Roddy McDowall and Ms. Stevens in “The Poseidon Adventure” (1972).20th Century FoxTwo exceptions came in the early 1970s: She acted opposite Jason Robards in “The Ballad of Cable Hogue” (1970), a comic western directed by Sam Peckinpah, and as part of an all-star cast assembled for “The Poseidon Adventure” (1972), joining Ernest Borgnine, Shelley Winters and Gene Hackman in an overturned ocean liner.By then her sex-symbol days were fading, and Ms. Stevens hoped to have the time and reputation to become a director. But female directors were almost unheard-of at the time, and her attempts to get support for what she called “a marvelous black comedy” that she wanted to make met repeated dead ends.“Every man I’ve gone to for four years has smiled at me and then double‐crossed me,” she told The New York Times in 1973. “Every man I’ve talked to in every office in this industry has tried his best to discourage me from directing. They don’t want me to find out it’s so easy because it’s supposed to be terribly hard.”Stella Stevens was born Estelle Caro Eggleston on Oct. 1, 1938, in Yazoo City, Miss., though she often told interviewers she was from a town called Hot Coffee, a nearby community. Her agent said anything sounded better than “Yazoo.”Her father, Thomas, worked for a bottling company in Yazoo, and her mother, Estelle (Caro) Eggleston, was a nurse. When Stella was still young, they moved to Memphis, where her father worked in sales for International Harvester.Stella dropped out of high school at 15 to marry Herman Stephens. They had one child, Andrew, and divorced in 1956. (She later changed her surname to Stevens because, she said, it was easier for people to pronounce.)Ms. Stevens in 1968. She worked with many of the top directors and actors of the 1960s, but she also had to take a series of mediocre roles in mediocre movies.Jack Kanthal/Associated PressShe returned to school after the divorce and earned a high school diploma. She enrolled at Memphis State College, now the University of Memphis, with plans to become an obstetrician.She also took up theater. A role in a college production of William Inge’s “Bus Stop” brought an invitation to audition in New York, and by 1959 she was in Los Angeles, on a three-year contract with 20th Century Fox.She finished three movies in six months, including “Say One for Me,” but the studio dropped her soon after. With a young son to feed, she took an offer from Playboy to pose nude for $5,000. After the shoot, she said, Hugh Hefner, the magazine’s publisher, would pay her only half and told her that she had to work as a hostess at the Playboy Mansion to earn the rest.Before the photos ran she signed a new contract, with Paramount. She asked Mr. Hefner to cancel the magazine feature, but he refused, and she appeared as Playmate of the Month in the January 1960 issue, a few months before winning her Golden Globe.“People don’t realize how horrible men can be toward a beautiful woman with no clothes on,” she told Delta magazine in 2010.Her relationship with Playboy remained complicated. Despite her anger at Mr. Hefner, she posed nude for the magazine two more times. She then sued Mr. Hefner and Playboy in 1974, citing several instances of invasion of her privacy, but the case was thrown out because the statute of limitations had expired.In 1998, Playboy named Ms. Stevens 27th on its list of the 20th century’s sexiest female stars, just behind Sharon Stone.Ms. Stevens in 2002. She became a regular guest star on television shows. Frederick M. Brown/Getty ImagesIn addition to her son, Ms. Stevens is survived by three grandchildren. Her longtime partner, Bob Kulick, died in 2020.Despite her career’s post-1960s fade, Ms. Stevens remained eager to work. She turned to television and had roles in some 80 episodes over the next four decades. Most of them were guest appearances on shows like “Murder, She Wrote,” “The Love Boat” and “Magnum P.I.,” though she was also a member of the regular cast of several shows, including the soap opera “Santa Barbara.”When she did return to film, it was often for soft-core erotic thrillers and campy horror movies, like “Chained Heat” (1983), in which she played a prison warden, and “The Granny” (1994), in which she played a wronged grandmother who comes back to life to get revenge on her scheming family.She eventually did get into the director’s chair, for “American Heroine,” a 1979 documentary, and “The Ranch,” a 1989 comedy starring her son. She also wrote a novel, “Razzle Dazzle” (1989), which featured a thinly fictionalized version of herself.“I don’t feel I’ve been successful yet,” she told The Vancouver Sun in 1998. “I’m still waiting to be discovered. I see myself as a work in progress. I keep trying to work and improve and do things I’m proud of.”Danielle Cruz contributed reporting. More

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      Bill Cosby Loses Sex Assault Lawsuit and Must Pay Damages

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      A jury in California sided with Judy Huth, who accused Mr. Cosby of molesting her at the Playboy Mansion in 1975, when she was 16.SANTA MONICA, Calif. — A jury on Tuesday found that Bill Cosby sexually assaulted Judy Huth in 1975, when as a 16-year-old girl she accepted his invitation to join him at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles.The decision by the jury once again tarnished the reputation of a man whose standing as one of America’s most beloved entertainers dissolved as dozens of women came forward to accuse him of sexual misconduct.As part of its decision, the jury awarded Ms. Huth $500,000 in compensatory damages, but declined to award punitive damages.Beyond its significance to Ms. Huth, who first came forward with her accusations in 2014, the verdict offered a degree of satisfaction for many of the women who for years have accused Mr. Cosby of similar abuse. The Huth case, for them, offered a second chance at getting public vindication of their accounts after Mr. Cosby’s criminal conviction in the Andrea Constand case was overturned by an appellate panel last year on due process grounds.Many of the accusers had been time-barred from filing their own suits because they had not come forward at the time when they said Mr. Cosby had attacked them. But Ms. Huth’s suit was able to move forward because the jury agreed she was a minor at the time, and California law extends the time frame in which people molested as children can file a civil claim.After the verdict was announced, and the jury dismissed, Ms. Huth hugged her lawyers.“I feel good, I feel vindicated.” Ms. Huth said.The verdict was a damaging setback for Mr. Cosby who, upon his release after serving nearly three years in prison, had promoted the appeals court decision as a full exoneration, an overstatement now overshadowed by a finding that reinforces an image of him as a person who wielded his celebrity to take advantage of women.Mr. Cosby has consistently denied the accounts of all of the women, asserting that, if he had sexual encounters with anyone, it had always been consensual. He invoked his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination and did not attend the trial. But parts of his deposition, which was videotaped several years ago, were played for the jurors and they heard him say he had no recollection of ever meeting Ms. Huth.The 12-person jury was not unanimous in its findings and voted 9 to 3 to award Ms. Huth the compensatory damages. After the jury was dismissed, one juror, Aldo Reyna, 25, explained why he decided in her favor.“Given the time frame, you have to go on somebody’s word,” he said in an interview. “Either you believe them, or you don’t. I believed her on the stand.”Jennifer Bonjean, a lawyer for Mr. Cosby, claimed some victory in the fact that the jury had decided against awarding punitive damages.“We do feel some relief,” she said. “Finding no punitive damages was a significant win for us.”A spokesman for Mr. Cosby, Andrew Wyatt, said the entertainer would appeal.“Mr. Cosby continues to maintain his innocence,” Mr. Wyatt said in a statement, “and will vigorously fight these false accusations, so that he can get back to bringing the pursuit of happiness, joy and laughter to the world.”The jury, which began deliberating Thursday, heard 10 days of testimony during which Ms. Huth, now 64, told of how a chance meeting with Mr. Cosby while he filmed a movie in a local park eventually led her to an isolated bedroom in the Playboy Mansion. In often emotional testimony, she described how a famous man she had once admired, whose comedy records her father collected, tried to put his hand down her pants and then forced her to perform a sex act on him.“I had my eyes closed at that point,” Ms. Huth said in court. “I was freaking out.”Afterward, she said, she was “mad — I felt duped, fooled. I was let down. I was hurt.”The Playboy encounter occurred several days after Ms. Huth and a friend, Donna Samuelson, met Mr. Cosby as he filmed a scene for a movie, “Let’s Do It Again,” in a park in San Marino, Calif., not far from their homes.Ms. Huth and Ms. Samuelson testified that Mr. Cosby invited them several days later to his tennis club and then to a house where he was staying, where they played billiards, he gave them alcohol and got them to follow him in their car to the Playboy Mansion, where he told them to say they were 19 if anyone asked their age.A snapshot of Ms. Huth and Mr. Cosby at the Playboy Mansion, taken by Ms. Huth’s friend. It was entered as evidence at trial.Jenna Schoenefeld for The New York TimesMr. Cosby, 84, denied Ms. Huth’s allegations, with his lawyer Jennifer Bonjean describing her account as “a complete and utter fabrication.” Though the jury was shown photographs of Mr. Cosby with Ms. Huth at the Playboy Mansion, taken by Ms. Samuelson, Mr. Cosby said in the deposition that he takes pictures with a lot of people and his lawyer suggested Ms. Huth had made up the assault and coordinated with her friend to make money.Ms. Bonjean pointed out that Ms. Huth, by her own account, had spent hours at the mansion after what Ms. Huth had described as a callous molestation, swimming in the pool and ordering cocktails. And she challenged Ms. Huth’s explanation for why she had not spoken about the episode in the months and years afterward, questioning whether Ms. Huth had really repressed a terrible experience or whether she simply came forward with an accusation to join others who were providing accounts of misconduct by Mr. Cosby at that time.Ms. Huth said she had simply buried the traumatic experience for years.“It’s like trash,” she said. “You dig a hole and throw trash in it.”The jury sided with Ms. Huth. But its decision came after lengthy deliberations punctuated by multiple questions from jurors who sought guidance on how to interpret the language of questions on a verdict sheet they were given as a guide. The process was further complicated when the jury forewoman had to be excused after the second day of deliberations. The panel, which reported it was close to a verdict on Friday, had to take on an alternate and was told to start over.As the trial progressed, Mr. Wyatt increasingly criticized the judge and one of Ms. Huth’s lawyers, Gloria Allred. Mr. Wyatt said the judge had unfairly favored Ms. Huth and he objected when Ms. Allred made an acknowledgment of Juneteenth in court, releasing a statement that she was exploiting the memory of “enslaved people” even as she helped a suit against Mr. Cosby, whom he called “Black America’s Icon.”After the verdict, Ms. Allred congratulated Ms. Huth on persevering through a long legal battle.“She has demonstrated so much courage and made so many sacrifices to win justice,” Ms. Allred said. “She won real change. She fought Bill Cosby and won.”Ms. Huth’s was the first civil case accusing Mr. Cosby of sexual assault to reach trial. He had been sued by other women, many of whom said he had defamed them after his legal team dismissed their allegations as fictions. Eleven civil cases ended in settlements, with 10 of the settlements having been agreed to by Mr. Cosby’s former insurance company over his objections, his spokesman said.Ms. Huth’s case had largely been put on hold while prosecutors in Pennsylvania pursued Mr. Cosby on criminal charges that he had drugged and sexually assaulted Ms. Constand, a former Temple University employee.But his 2018 conviction in that case was overturned by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which ruled that a nonprosecution agreement made by a previous prosecutor meant that Mr. Cosby should not have been charged in the case.One remaining civil case was filed last year by Lili Bernard, an actor and visual artist, who accused him of drugging and sexually assaulting her at a hotel in Atlantic City in 1990, when she was 26. Mr. Cosby has denied her account, and the case is still in its early stages.Ms. Bernard was one of several women who have accused Mr. Cosby of abusing them sexually who attended the trial in Santa Monica on some days in support of Ms. Huth. She praised the verdict, saying, it “goes way beyond Cosby survivors.”“Judy Huth is a hero!” she said. “Her coming forward inspired others to find their voices.” More

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      Lawyers Make Closing Arguments in Bill Cosby Sex Assault Trial

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      The jury in the civil case brought by a woman who says Mr. Cosby molested her when she was 16 is expected to begin deliberating on Thursday.The jury in the Bill Cosby sex assault trial is expected to begin deliberations on Thursday after being presented starkly different accounts on Wednesday of what had happened to a 16-year-old girl at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles some 47 years ago.In his closing argument, Nathan Goldberg, a lawyer for Judy Huth, who brought the suit, told the 12-person jury that Mr. Cosby had schemed to isolate and take advantage of the teenager, and that she had paid a painful price over a lifetime of anxiety and depression. That anxiety intensified, she has said, around the time many other women were coming forward with accusations against Mr. Cosby in 2014, and diminished in 2018 when he was found guilty in a criminal case in Pennsylvania.“His behavior involved planning and intent to get her to a vulnerable location,” he told the jury impaneled to decide the civil case in Santa Monica, Calif. “If you believe she was molested by Mr. Cosby, he has to be held fully accountable. Four years of misery, what’s that worth to a person?”Mr. Goldberg said the jury should consider carefully the testimony of Donna Samuelson, a friend at the time who had accompanied Ms. Huth to the mansion and corroborated Ms. Huth’s testimony. He also pointed to the testimony of two other women whom Ms. Huth’s team had produced as witnesses and who described encounters with Mr. Cosby in 1975, the year Ms. Huth said she met him.Mr. Goldberg said that Mr. Cosby’s defense amounted to implying that all four women were “in on it” and lying.The Sexual Assault Cases Against Bill CosbyAfter Bill Cosby’s 2018 criminal conviction for sexual assault was overturned, the first civil case accusing him of sexual misconduct has reached trial.The Civil Trial: Judy Huth has accused Mr. Cosby of assaulting her as a teenager. She took the stand in June and described the encounter with the entertainer that she says led to her assault.Line of Defense: Mr. Cosby’s team has attempted to discredit Ms. Huth’s recollection of her encounter with the defendant and accused her of lying about it.Criminal Conviction: In 2018, a jury found the disgraced entertainer guilty of drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand at his home near 14 years earlier.His Release From Prison: After the conviction was overturned on the grounds that prosecutors violated Mr. Cosby’s rights by reneging on a promise not to charge him, Mr. Cosby was released from prison on June 30, 2021.But in their closing statement, Mr. Cosby’s lawyers said that, far from being a victim, Ms. Huth was an unreliable witness — one who had blatantly made up an account of assault and coordinated her story with her friend, Ms. Samuelson, before coming forward to file the lawsuit in 2014.“I don’t think you can believe anything Ms. Huth says, frankly,” said Jennifer Bonjean, a lawyer for Mr. Cosby.She said that Ms. Huth could not demonstrate that there had been sexual contact, and her lawyers had not met the burden of proof to show that the distress she reported suffering later in life was caused by any encounter with Mr. Cosby.Mr. Cosby has denied having any sexual contact with Ms. Huth. His lawyer said that it would have been acceptable if Mr. Cosby had been attracted to her because, she said, the two friends had looked like adult women.“She cannot demonstrate that there was causation between this incident and the alleged trauma 40 years later,” Ms. Bonjean said.“I am not going to credit her just because we live in a time where, if she says it, it must be true,” she added. “There’s no evidence.”Ms. Huth, now 64, and Ms. Samuelson have said they were invited by Mr. Cosby, now 84, to join him at the mansion several days after meeting him on a film set that they had come upon in a park not far from their homes.Ms. Huth said Mr. Cosby invited them to his tennis club, then gave them alcohol at a house where he was staying. She said he then asked them to follow him in their car to the mansion, where, in an isolated bedroom, he tried to put his hand down her pants and then forced her to perform a sex act on him.When it begins its deliberations, the jury will be asked to decide its verdict based on a preponderance of the evidence. Only nine of the 12 will have to agree on a finding to reach a verdict, unlike the unanimity required in a criminal case.In an effort to highlight inconsistencies in the testimony against their client, Mr. Cosby’s lawyers emphasized, as they had earlier in the trial, that an arcade game, “Donkey Kong,” Ms Samuelson said she had played at the mansion was not released until several years later. Ms. Samuelson said she simply got the name wrong.In his closing remarks, Mr. Goldberg said, “This is not a game.“We have a client,” he continued, “who was sexually molested by Bill Cosby at the Playboy Mansion in 1975. Now it’s your turn to hold him accountable. Justice does not know how much time has passed. It knows what is right and wrong.” More

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      A Woman Who Says Bill Cosby Molested Her as a Teen Begins Testifying

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      Judy Huth, who is suing Mr. Cosby on sexual assault grounds in a civil case, took the stand in California to begin describing an encounter with the entertainer that took place decades ago.Judy Huth took the stand in Santa Monica on Monday to describe a moment in 1975 when, as a teenager, she said she met Bill Cosby in a California park where he was making a film.Days later, at his invitation, she said, she and her friend went along to his tennis club and then ultimately to the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles.“It was an adventure,” Ms. Huth said. “We were kids. He was a celebrity.”But later that day, the man she had admired as a famous comedian molested her, she said, after taking her to an isolated room at the mansion. Ms. Huth said she was 16 years old at the time.Mr. Cosby has denied he sexually assaulted Ms. Huth or any of the other women who have come forward in recent years to accuse him of sexual misconduct. He has said any relationship was consensual.But Ms. Huth, 64, has sued Mr. Cosby for sexual assault, and her account, which was not finished on Monday, is the centerpiece of her case against the entertainer, which completed its fourth day of testimony. Ms. Huth testified that she and her friend had been impressed when they saw Mr. Cosby — along with other movie stars — in a park in San Marino on the set of the film “Let’s Do It Again.” According to her account, Mr. Cosby gave the two teenagers alcohol at a house where he was staying, telling them to drink if he bested them in a game of pool, and then asked them to follow him in a car to the mansion. The Sexual Assault Cases Against Bill CosbyAfter Bill Cosby’s 2018 criminal conviction for sexual assault was overturned, the first civil case accusing him of sexual misconduct has reached trial.The Civil Trial: Judy Huth has accused Mr. Cosby of assaulting her as a teenager. She sued in 2014, but the case had been on hold while he was criminally prosecuted.Criminal Conviction: In 2018, a jury found the disgraced entertainer guilty of drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand at his home near 14 years earlier,His Release From Prison: After the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned the conviction, Mr. Cosby was released from prison on June 30, 2021.The Ruling: The conviction was overturned on the grounds that prosecutors violated Mr. Cosby’s rights by reneging on a promise not to charge him.“Are you girls ready for your surprise?” he said, according to Ms. Huth. “I had no clue what it could be,” she said. Her lawyers showed the jury a photograph of Ms. Huth standing with Mr. Cosby in the game room at the mansion, taken, she told the court, “before he molested me. It happened 15 minutes after.”Ms. Huth’s testimony was interrupted by the end of the court day before she was able to discuss what she has, in court papers for her case, accused him of doing: placing his hand down her pants and then forcing her to fondle him.The impact of that event, her lawyers have told the court, included depression and anxiety. She had experienced a happy childhood, she said, growing up in Temple City, Calif. But her lawyers said that the incident had derailed her and that she didn’t earn her high school diploma until she was 60.Mr. Cosby’s lawyers have disputed Ms. Huth’s account, suggesting that their meeting actually happened years later, when she was an older, and willing, visitor to the mansion who by her own account did not flee after the encounter but stayed on for hours, swimming in the pool and watching a movie.Ms. Huth’s lawsuit, filed in 2014, was largely on hold while prosecutors in Pennsylvania pursued Mr. Cosby, 84, criminally on charges that he had sexually assaulted Andrea Constand, a former Temple University employee.But Mr. Cosby’s 2018 conviction in that case was overturned last year by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court on due process grounds, and Mr. Cosby walked free after serving nearly three years of a three- to 10-year sentence.Mr. Cosby, flanked by two of his lawyers, outside his home in the Philadelphia suburbs after being freed from prison last year. Mark Makela/ReutersEarlier on Monday, Mr. Cosby’s lawyers had cross-examined Donna Samuelson, Ms. Huth’s friend who accompanied her to the mansion. She had told the court last week that Ms. Huth had been distraught after her encounter with Mr. Cosby but that Ms. Samuelson persuaded her to stay.Mr. Cosby’s defense tried to undermine the credibility of that account, suggesting that the two friends had coordinated their stories before Ms. Huth first went to the police in 2014. (Prosecutors ultimately declined to file criminal charges because the statute of limitations had passed.)But Ms. Samuelson said she had simply misremembered when she had initially reported to authorities that Ms. Huth was 15 at the time, not 16 as Ms. Huth now says.Mr. Cosby’s lawyers showed a layout of the game room at the Playboy Mansion and said that Ms. Samuelson had been wrong to say a person could access the bathroom only through an adjoining bedroom.Mr. Cosby’s lawyers also said it was impossible for Ms. Samuelson to have played the arcade game “Donkey Kong” there in 1975, as she has testified in a deposition. The game was not released until six years later.Ms. Samuelson said she meant that she had played a game like Donkey Kong.She denied that she and Ms. Huth had coordinated their accounts before Ms. Huth went to the police in 2014. “We were not putting anything together,” she said. “We were just telling our memories.”Jennifer Bonjean, a lawyer for Mr. Cosby, also brought up the subject of race in a way that suggested Ms. Samuelson was motivated to take down Mr. Cosby because he is Black. She said, for example, that Ms. Samuelson, in her pre-trial deposition, had described the décor of his house in Los Angeles as “jungly” and “African,” referring to the leaf print on the wallpaper.“It wasn’t atypical for people in your friend group to use racial slurs like the N-word,” the lawyer asserted.Ms. Samuelson said she never did that.“I am not racist,” she said.One of Mr. Cosby’s lawyers, Jennifer Bonjean.Lucy Nicholson/ReutersMr. Cosby’s lawyers have noted in court proceedings that Ms. Huth’s recollection of when her encounter took place has changed: While she initially said it had happened in 1974, when she was 15, she more recently concluded it was in 1975, when she was 16. The law in California classified a 16-year-old as a minor. In disputing Ms. Huth’s account, Mr. Cosby’s lawyers have suggested they met years after the time she said they did, when she was no longer a minor.Last week, Ms. Huth’s legal team introduced two other women who testified about encounters with Mr. Cosby. Kimberly Burr testified that she was 14 years old when he tried to kiss her in his trailer on the set of “Let’s Do It Again” in 1975 as well.Margie Shapiro testified that she was 19 that year when Mr. Cosby met her at the doughnut shop where she was working and invited her to the set of another movie he was filming in Los Angeles. Later that day, according to her testimony, she went to his house and then they went to the Playboy Mansion, where, she said, he drugged and assaulted her, an accusation that Mr. Cosby denies.Mr. Cosby is not expected to testify at the trial, having asserted his Fifth Amendment rights. But lawyers for Ms. Huth deposed him several years ago, and a portion of that testimony is expected to be presented in court before the conclusion of the trial, which is expected to last through the week. More