A woman who accused Bill Cosby of drugging and sexually assaulting her more than 50 years ago has been awarded $19.25 million by a jury in Santa Monica, California.
Jurors found Cosby liable on Monday, March 23, of sexual battery and the sexual assault of an intoxicated person in 1972, Rolling Stone and NBC News reported.
The jury ordered Cosby to pay accuser Donna Motsinger $17.5 million for mental suffering and $1.75 million for future suffering after she filed a civil lawsuit against the comedian in 2023. Additional punitive damages in the case will be decided later.
In the complaint filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court in Santa Monica, Motsinger said Cosby befriended her while she was working as a server at a restaurant called The Trident in the Bay Area community of Sausalito, California.
In court testimony and in her complaint, Motsinger said the comedian invited her to one of his shows and she agreed to attend. Now 84, the former server said Cosby gave her a glass of wine that had allegedly been laced with drugs.
“She began to feel sick and Mr. Cosby gave her what she believed was an aspirin,” the suit stated. Afterwards, Motsinger said she passed out.
“The last thing Ms. Motsinger recalls were flashes of light. She woke up in her house with all her clothes off, except her underwear on – no top, no bra, and no pants. She knew she had been drugged and raped by Bill Cosby,” the lawsuit said.
Cosby, 88, denied the allegations. In court filings, the comedian’s legal team questioned Motsinger’s claims, saying “she has no idea what happened and just assumes [Cosby] assaulted her.”
The comedian’s attorneys argued if any intimate contact occurred between Motsinger and Cosby, it was consensual.
Jennifer Bonjean, a lawyer for the comedian, told reporters outside the courthouse she was “disappointed” by the jury’s decision and plans to appeal.
A Pennsylvania jury found Cosby guilty in a 2018 criminal trial on three counts of aggravated indecent assault for allegedly assaulting former Temple University athletics employee Andrea Constand in 2004.
Constand told jurors Cosby gave her three blue pills that left her unable to move. She said the comedian assaulted her while she was immobilized.
He served three years in state prison before his conviction was overturned on a technicality by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in 2021.
Cosby was released from custody after the state’s high court said prosecutors committed misconduct when they re-tried the case after the comedian previously struck a “non-prosecution agreement” with a former district attorney.
Cosby insisted he was innocent throughout the case.
Motsinger initially came forward as a Jane Doe accuser in a civil lawsuit Constand filed against the comedian.
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