Hugh Hefner has been named as a co-defendant in a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court alleging the publisher’s negligence enabled a 2008 drugging and sexual assault of a Las Vegas dancer by beleaguered comedian Bill Cosby at the Playboy Mansion.
The accuser, Chloe Goins, then 18, charges in court documents that the 90-year-old pornographer was “negligent at the very least” for “inviting and hosting young and impressionable and possibly minor children” to his Los Angeles home and providing alcohol “or foreign substances,” Fox News reported.
Ms. Goins, who withdrew a lawsuit against Mr. Cosby earlier this year, claims the comedian spiked her drink, causing her to become unconscious. She said she awoke naked with a sticky substance on her chest, and Cosby sucking on her toes, Fox reported.
The suit charges that Mr. Hefner “knew or should have known” that Mr. Cosby, “had a history of severe and serial sexual battery and/or possibly rape of women.”
Mr. Hefner, whose name was also mentioned in 2014 by another Cosby accuser, Judy Huth, defended Mr. Cosby from that accusation, calling him “a good friend for many years.”
“I would never tolerate this kind of behavior, regardless of who was involved, Mr. Hefner said at the time.
In 2015, promoting her memoir about living at the Playboy Mansion, former Hefner girlfriend Holly Madison painted a rather negative picture of life at the mansion, although not alleging any sexual impropriety by Mr. Hefner.
“It was clear that there was certain things expected of you,” she told Us magazine, adding, “It was clear that there was a definite routine going on, and it was very bizarre. It definitely wasn’t what I expected it to be, it was a lot scarier. I was offered prescription drugs.”
Mr. Hefner dismissed Ms. Madison’s claims at the time, saying she was one of “a few [ex-lovers] who have chosen to rewrite history in an attempt to stay in the spotlight.”
• Ken Shepherd can be reached at kshepherd@washingtontimes.com.
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