Sexual Assault: Bill Cosby to Pay $59M
A California jury awarded a woman named Donna Motsinger millions on Monday after finding Bill Cosby liable for a 1972 sexual assault.
Motsinger is currently 84 years old. At the time of the assault in 1972, she was in her 30s and working as a restaurant server in Sausalito, California.
The jury found the 88-year-old comedian liable for drugging and sexually assaulting Motsinger. They initially awarded her $19.25 million, $17.5 million for past suffering and $1.75 million for future emotional distress.
However, just hours later, following a second phase of deliberations to determine if Cosby acted with “malice,” the jury added an additional $40 million in punitive damages, bringing the total to $59.25 million.
In the complaint, filed in 2023, a copy of which was provided by Panish Shea Ravipudi LLP, the law firm representing her, Motsinger had alleged that Cosby drugged and raped her in 1972.
According to the suit, Cosby went to the restaurant where Motsinger worked in Sausalito, California, every day for a week. While Motsinger was returning home, Cosby followed and pulled up next to her, inviting her to a show he was performing.
He later picked her up from her house in a limousine and gave her a glass of wine. Upon arriving to the theater, she began to feel sick and Cosby gave her what she believed to be aspirin. However, she quickly lost consciousness, later waking up at home in her underwear — unaware how she got there.
“She [then] knew she had been drugged and raped by Bill Cosby,” the suit said.
Cosby has faced a plethora of sexual assault allegations in recent years, and he served three years in prison on a sexual assault charge until the conviction was overturned in 2021 for procedural reasons, according to the NYT. In a subsequent separate civil trial, the jury found him liable for sexually abusing then-16-year-old Judy Huth in 1975.
NYT notes that California, along with other states, have changed laws regarding the statute of limitations in sexual assault suits, increasing the time accusers have to come forward, which allowed Motsinger to file her case.
“It has been 54 years to get justice, and I know it’s not complete for the rest of the women, but i hope it helps them a little bit,” she said at the courthouse.
The outlet reported that Cosby did not testify at the trial and that his lawyer said they will be pursuing an appeal.
Cosby has denied all allegations, and he argues that in every case, all sexual encounters were consensual. In the deposition, Cosby noted that he remembered being in the limo with Motsinger, but he could not recall if they had sex or not, according to NYT.
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