Santa Monica jury awards $59.5M in civil sex abuse verdict against Bill Cosby

A Los Angeles County jury on Monday awarded $19.25 million to a woman who alleged Bill Cosby drugged and raped her more than 50 years ago, finding the comedian liable for sexual assault of an intoxicated person and sexual battery, and determining he acted with malice.

Hours later, after a second round of deliberations, jurors added $40 million in punitive damages, bringing the total award to $59.5 million.

Jurors awarded plaintiff Donna Motsinger, 84, $17.5 million in past noneconomic damages and $1.75 million in future noneconomic damages following a trial that began March 10. Motsinger v. Cosby et al., 23SMCV04562 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed Sept. 27, 2023).

The case marks the second major civil verdict against Cosby. Nearly four years ago, a jury found him liable for sexually assaulting Judy Huth at the Playboy Mansion in 1975, when she was 16 and he was 37.

Cosby, 88, has denied assaulting any of the dozens of women who have accused him of sexual misconduct over decades.

Motsinger's 2023 complaint alleged sexual battery, negligence, intentional infliction of emotional distress and false imprisonment. Attorneys Jesse Creed, Spencer Lucas, and Hunter Norton of Panish | Shea | Ravipudi LLP and Michael A. Bressler of The Bressler Firm, LLC filed the action on her behalf.

Motsinger, who first came forward as Jane Doe Number 8 in Andrea Constand's 2005 lawsuit, said Cosby befriended her while she worked as a server at The Trident in Sausalito -- visiting daily and once calling her son from a payphone there. He followed her home from work, she said, then invited her to his performance at the Circle Star Theater in San Carlos, picking her up in a limousine and giving her wine en route. At the theater, he brought her to his dressing room, where she began to feel ill after he gave her what she believed was an aspirin.

"Next thing she knew, she was going in and out of consciousness," her lawsuit stated. "The last thing Ms. Motsinger recalls were flashes of light. She woke up in her house with all her clothes off, except her underwear on -- no top, no bra, and no pants. She knew she had been drugged and raped by Bill Cosby."

After the verdict, Cosby's attorney, Jennifer Bonjean, told Rolling Stone she was disappointed but said the defense would appeal.

In 2021, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court threw out Cosby's 2018 conviction on three counts of aggravated indecent assault against Andrea Constand, ruling that a prior nonprosecution agreement, under which Cosby had testified in Constand's civil lawsuit, shielded him from criminal charges. His overturned conviction had carried a three-to-10-year prison sentence. Cosby had already struck a private civil settlement with Constand in 2006, after more than a dozen women, including Motsinger, agreed to take the stand as witnesses.

The trial was held in Department O at the Santa Monica Courthouse.