Bill Cosby has been found guilty of drugging and raping Donna Motsinger, 54 years after it happened, and has been ordered to pay the former waitress $19 million, following a civil trial
Bill Cosby has been found guilty of drugging and raping Donna Motsinger, a Santa Monica jury in a civil trial has found. 54 years after it happened, Cosby was ordered to pay $19.25 million in damages.
The 88-year-oldwas found guilty of sexual assault of an intoxicated woman and sexual battery of Motsinger, which happened in 1972. The jury deliberated for only three days and ordered Cosby to pay $17.5 million for her prior mental trauma, along with another $1.75 million for the mental suffering she might experience in the future.
The 84-year-old former waitress was allowed to sue Cosby as California had recently changed its statute of limitations for sex crimes. It is uncertain if Cosby will be financially able to pay the damages to Motsinger, and his lawyer, Jennifer Bonjean, is planning an appeal.
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Like in previous sexual assault cases, Cosby did not testify in his own defence. In a deposition video, Cosby responded to a question about whether he had sex with Motsinger with: “I cannot remember if I did or not.”
In her 11-page complaint, first issued in 2023, Motsinger said she met Cosby at her job as a waitress in the Bay Area and was invited to his local comedy show at the Circle Star Theatre in San Carlos. There, she went backstage and felt sick, after which Cosby “gave her what she believed was an aspirin”. She blacked out and then woke up in her house wearing nothing but her underwear.
The complaint read: “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.” This happened the same night Cosby recorded his best-selling Inside The Mind Of Bill Cosby album.
Cosby may be ordered to pay more punitive damages based on the “malice, oppression or fraud” committed by him back in 1972. Cosby has continually denied having nonconsensual sex and has said, through lawyers, that he is being targeted because he is famous. He has been accused of drugging and raping multiple women.
In 2018, he was convicted of the 2004 rape of Andrea Constand, a former Temple University athletics administrator. He was sentenced to three to 10 years in prison, but the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned the convinction on procedural grounds in June 2021.
In 2022, he was found guilty of sexually assaulting Judy Huth in 1975, when she was just 16 years old. He was sued for sexual battery of Huth back in in 2014 and she was awarded $500,000 in damages.
If you’ve been the victim of sexual assault, you can access help and resources via www.rapecrisis.org.uk or calling the national telephone helpline on 0808 802 9999
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