Jury Finds Bill Cosby Liable For Sexual Assault, Awards Victim $59M
On Monday, a Santa Monica jury found Bill Cosby liable for drugging and sexually assaulting a woman in 1972 and ordered Cosby to pay the victim nearly $60 million in damages.
According to AP, the victim, Donna Motsinger, filed her suit against Cosby in 2023. In her lawsuit, Motsinger said she was working as a server in a restaurant near San Francisco when Cosby approached her. Cosby invited her to a nearby comedy show, where she said Cosby gave her a glass of wine and two pills she believed to be aspirin. Motsinger said she was going in and out of consciousness when two men put her in a limousine. “She woke up in her house with all her clothes off, except her underwear on – no top, no bra, and no pants,” the lawsuit said. “She knew she had been drugged and raped by Bill Cosby.”
They both were in their 30s at the time of the assault.
After a nearly two-week civil trial and two days of deliberation, the jury awarded Motsinger $17.5 million in past damages and $1.75 million for future damages, which include “mental suffering, loss of enjoyment of life, inconvenience, grief, anxiety, humiliation, and emotional distress.” During the second phase of the trial on Monday afternoon, the judge also awarded Motsinger an additional $40 million in punitive damages.
The New York Times reports that Cosby has said he’s run into financial difficulties in recent years. “Due to allegations, whether they be newspaper, radio, television, magazines or just plain internet, I have not worked in about 10 years, or more,” Cosby said in a deposition for the case. “That means I have not earned a cent through my being an entertainer, a writer, a television performer, except in reruns, and my net worth has gone down like a submarine with no motor.”
An expert witness brought in by Motsinger’s lawyers disputed the idea that Cosby was destitute and estimated that his worth was approximately $128 million.
“This verdict is not just about me – it’s about finally being heard and holding Mr. Cosby accountable,” Motsinger said in a statement. “I have carried the weight of what happened to me for more than 50 years. It never goes away. Today, a jury saw the truth and held him accountable. That means everything. I hope this gives strength to other survivors who are still waiting for their moment to be heard.”
Motsinger added that while it was not a criminal trial with a guilty verdict, she expressed gratitude “that I’m believed and he, in some way, has to be accountable for what he did to me.”
Cosby’s lawyer, Jennifer Bonjean, argued against the punitive damages and said that they fully intend to appeal. “This is not about providing deterrence,” Bonjean told the jury. “A blind 88-year-old man can’t leave his house.”
I don’t think anyone assumed this was about deterrence. It’s about getting justice for a woman who’s had to live with a trauma no one should have to endure.
The ruling comes five years after Cosby was released from prison after serving three years of a three-to-10-year sentence for sexually assaulting Andrea Constand. Cosby was released from prison after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court tossed his conviction after finding that a deal Cosby had made with a previous prosecutor should have prevented him from being criminally charged in the case. Constand testified during Motsinger’s trial along with two other women who have accused Cosby of sexual assault.
While it’s not the justice the victims deserve, at the very least, the court acknowledged the pain that Cosby caused Motsinger.
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