Former actor and comedian Bill Cosby was found guilty in a sexual assault lawsuit from 1972. A California jury reached its verdict in Los Angeles County and ordered Cosby to pay $17.5 million in past non-economic damages and $1.75 million in future economic damages, as per a People report.
Cosby had been brought to court by Donna Motsinger, who was drugged and assaulted, joining the list of 60 alleged women who had accused the actor-comedian of similar charges.
This comes after Cosby was convicted in 2018 for assaulting Andrea Constand and sentenced to 10 years in prison. Released after serving 3 years, the ruling was overturned in 2021 over a fallacy in procedure. In fact, this is not the first monetary renumeration Cosby has had to pay. In 2022, a separate civil jury found him guilty of sexually assaulting a teenager in 1975, Judy Huth. The court awarded her $50,000 in damages.
Bill Cosby’s 1972 case
Donna Motsinger was in her 30s when she was attacked by Bill Cosby in 1972. According to the New York Times, Cosy had given her wine and a pill, which left her incapacitated. While he denied the allegations, the comedian-actor did not testify at the trial, leaving the jury to side with Motsinger.
Who is Donna Motsinger?
Motsinger first met him when she worked as a server in a restaurant called Trident. Later, on her way home, Cosby stopped his car next to her and invited her to his stand-up act at the Circle Star Theatre.
Picking her up in a limo, she started to feel sick after she reached the venue. She was offered a pill, under the pretext of an aspirin, which led her to lose consciousness. As per the court papers, cited by the NYT, she remembers being put in a limo by two men with Cosby, only later to wake up in a bed.
After more than half a decade, this seemed like a momentous win for Motsinger. She told NYT outside the courthouse, “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,” calling the $19.25 million in damages an ‘icing on the cake’.
During several past accusations and narratives stirred by the #MeToo movement, Cosby has consistently maintained a stand on the matter that all such encounters have been consensual, calling out the accusations that paint him as a sexual predator.
After leaving prison in 2021, Cosby, now 88, largely stays out of the public eye. Experiencing a severe financial downturn, he lost his high-profile titular TV role, ‘The Cosby Show’, which once enjoyed a large viewership. He also sold his $28 million Manhattan townhouse, one of his New York real estate assets, during the ongoing deposition. However, he retains his homes in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, as per the NYT.