LAPD Says It Will Investigate Abuse Claim Against Cosby

Enlarge this image toggle caption Anthony McCartney/AP Anthony McCartney/AP

Los Angeles police say they will investigate a woman's claims that in the mid-1970s at the age of 15, she was molested by comedian Bill Cosby.

The Associated Press says: "The investigation was opened Friday after Judy Huth, who is suing Cosby for sexual battery, met with detectives for 90 minutes, Officer Jane Kim said."

Further, the AP says: "Huth's civil suit claims Cosby forced her to perform a sex act on him in a bedroom of the Playboy Mansion around 1974 when she was underage."

The AP says Cosby's attorney, Martin Singer, filed a response on Thursday to the lawsuit by Huth, now 55, calling her claims "absolutely false" and alleging they are part of an extortion effort.

Although the LAPD did not give any details of the investigation, Police Chief Charlie Beck on Thursday urged potential victims of sex abuse by Cosby to speak with detectives, the AP says.

The latest troubles for Cosby, 77, come as more than 15 women have come forward to accuse the comic actor of sexual misconduct, including several claims of rape.

Cosby, in an interview with NPR last month, declined to comment on allegations by Barbara Bowman, who recently published a column in The Washington Post saying that in 1985, when she was 17, the comedian drugged and raped her. In a separate videotaped interview with the AP last month, Cosby replied "no comment" to a question about Bowman's charges.

Similar claims were made a decade earlier by another woman, Andrea Constand, who settled with Cosby out of court in 2006.

[Note: In an earlier version of this story, we placed quote marks around material attributed to The Associated Press that, in part, paraphrased LAPD Officer Jane Kim. We have changed this to clarify that the text is not a direct quote from Kim.]