US actor Bill Cosby faces a new trial after being convicted of sexual assault and released from prison.

The US comedian and actor Bill Cosby (84) is again in court on allegations of sexual abuse. The civil trial opened in Santa Monica, California.

A plaintiff, now 64, alleges that Cosby molested her in 1975 when she was 16 at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles.

At the start of the proceedings, the plaintiff’s lawyer said that two other women will testify that they were abused by Cosby when they were teenagers, as reported by the magazines “Rolling Stone” and “Los Angeles Times”. Cosby’s attorneys have dismissed the plaintiff’s allegations. They expect Cosby to be “fully exonerated,” the New York Times quoted a statement from his spokesman as saying.

The woman made the allegations back in 2014. There was no criminal prosecution because the incident has already expired. Because the woman was a minor at the time, she can still take civil action against Cosby with claims for damages.

Sentenced to several years in prison in 2018

The civil proceedings were suspended when Cosby was criminally prosecuted in the US state of Pennsylvania in 2017. More than 60 women had accused the actor of various kinds of sexual assault. The entertainer had always rejected the allegations.

In 2018, Cosby was sentenced to several years in prison for sexual assault. The trial was about a case from 2004. Cosby had spent around three years in prison when the highest court in Pennsylvania surprisingly overturned his conviction in June last year due to a procedural error – Cosby was released.

Around ten days of negotiations are scheduled for the ongoing proceedings in California. Cosby does not have to be there and is not expected to testify.