A civil jury in California discovered Monday that Bill Cosby was accountable for drugging and sexually assaulting a woman in 1972 and awarded her $19.25 million.
After a virtually two-week trial in Santa Monica, jurors discovered the 88-year-old Cosby accountable for the sexual battery and assault of Donna Motsinger.
Cosby’s lawyer, Jennifer Bonjean, mentioned in an e-mail that they’re upset and absolutely intend to enchantment the decision.
The choice got here practically 5 years after Cosby was freed from prison in Pennsylvania when the state Supreme Court threw out a prison conviction based mostly on related allegations.
Motsinger had been a server at a restaurant in Sausalito close to San Francisco who mentioned in her lawsuit, filed in 2023, that Cosby had invited her to his stand-up comedy present at a theater in close by San Carlos. Both had been in their 30s on the time. She mentioned Cosby gave her wine and two tablets that she believed had been aspirin, and that she was going in and out of consciousness as two males 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 mentioned. “She knew she had been drugged and raped by Bill Cosby.”
In courtroom filings, Cosby’s attorneys argued that the allegations rested nearly completely on hypothesis and assumption, saying Motsinger “freely admits that she has no idea what happened.”
Jurors awarded Motsinger $17.5 million in previous damages and $1.75 million for future damages, together with “mental suffering, loss of enjoyment of life, inconvenience, grief, anxiety, humiliation, and emotional distress.” They deliberated for simply over a day.
They can award even more in a punitive damages part of the trial that begins later Monday.
Cosby didn’t testify on the trial, whose witnesses included Andrea Constand, the Temple University sports activities administrator he was convicted of sexually assaulting in a Pennsylvania prison courtroom in 2018. The state’s Supreme Court threw out the decision and Cosby was free of jail after serving practically three years of a three- to 10-year sentence.
Motsinger first made her allegations anonymously in a 2005 lawsuit filed by Constand.
The Associated Press doesn’t sometimes identify individuals who say they’ve been sexually abused except they arrive ahead publicly and consent to be named, as Constand and Motsinger have.
In 2022, a jury in Santa Monica awarded $500,000 to a woman who mentioned Cosby sexually assaulted her on the Playboy Mansion when she was an adolescent in 1975.
Motsinger’s lawsuit echoed allegations of rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment made by no less than 60 girls towards Cosby, all of which he has denied.
The former stand-up comedy and tv famous person as soon as extensively generally known as “America’s Dad” grew to become the primary movie star tried and convicted in the #MeToo period earlier than his conviction was completely thrown out when appeals courtroom discovered he gave incriminating testimony in a deposition solely after believing he had immunity from prosecution.