A California jury on Monday ordered Bill Cosby to pay $59.25 million to Donna Motsinger, who accused the comedian of drugging and sexually assaulting her more than five decades ago.
Jurors found Cosby liable for sexual battery and assault in the civil case stemming from a 1972 encounter after Motsinger met him at a restaurant in Sausalito near San Francisco.
Motsinger, 84, told the court Cosby gave her wine and two pills she thought were aspirin while they were riding in a limousine, causing her to drift in and out of consciousness. She later said she woke up realizing she had been assaulted.
Cosby testified that the encounter was consensual. In addition to compensatory damages, jurors also imposed punitive damages.
Cosby's Defense Rejects Claims
Cosby, 88, did not take the stand during the trial. His defense team argued in court filings that Motsinger's claims relied almost entirely on speculation, noting that she "freely admits that she has no idea what happened.”Among those who testified was Andrea Constand, a former Temple University sports administrator whom Cosby was criminally convicted of sexually assaulting in Pennsylvania in 2018. Cosby served nearly three years of a three- to 10-year sentence before the state Supreme Court overturned that conviction and ordered his release, citing concerns about a prior immunity agreement. The civil verdict comes nearly five years after that release.
Motsinger, who was working as a server at the Sausalito restaurant in 1972, said in her lawsuit that Cosby—then a popular stand-up comedian—invited her to his show at a theater in nearby San Carlos. Both were in their 30s at the time of the alleged assault.
Her allegations were not new. Motsinger first surfaced anonymously in a 2005 lawsuit filed by Constand. She filed her own suit in 2023.
List of Allegations
The verdict adds to a string of civil losses for Cosby in California. In 2022, a separate Santa Monica jury awarded $500,000 to a woman who alleged Cosby sexually assaulted her at the Playboy Mansion when she was a teenager in 1975.Cosby has denied all allegations. More than 60 women have accused him of rape, sexual assault, or sexual harassment over the decades. Once celebrated as "America's Dad" for his starring role in the long-running sitcom that bore his name, Cosby became the first celebrity tried and convicted in the #MeToo era, only for that conviction to be permanently thrown out on appeal.