A civil jury in Los Angeles found that disgraced actor and comedian Bill Cosby drugged and raped a former waitress in 1972, according to multiple reports.
The former waitress, 84-year-old Donna Motsinger, will be awarded $59.25 million — $19.25 million for noneconomic damages and $40 million in punitive damages, the jury decided.
Motsinger, who filed the lawsuit in Los Angeles County Superior Court in September 2023, was a server at The Trident, a now-closed restaurant in Sausalito, California, that Cosby and other celebrities frequented. Once, Cosby invited her to a show at the Circle Star Theater in San Carlos, California. He picked her up from her home in a limo and gave her a glass of wine that eventually made her feel sick.
“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,” the complaint said.
Motsinger said Cosby “intentionally deprived” her of “freedom of movement” by “fraudulently and deceitfully drugging and sedating her without her knowledge or consent to the point of unconsciousness.”
“For decades, defendant Cosby engaged in the serial sexual assault of dozens of women for his sexual gratification by drugging women and using unknown substances to incapacitate them,” the complaint also said. “Defendant Cosby used his enormous wealth, power, fame, and prestige, giving women like Ms. Motsinger access to a world of celebrities and entertainers.”
Cosby, once regarded as “America’s Dad,” didn’t testify at the trial.
Cosby has been accused of sexual assault by at least 60 women. He has denied each of the allegations against him, and in a deposition for the case last year, he said the allegations have caused financial strain.
“Due to allegations, whether they be newspaper, radio, television, magazines or just plain internet, I have not worked in about 10 years, or more,” Cosby said in the deposition. “That means I have not earned a cent through my being an entertainer, a writer, a television performer, except in reruns, and my net worth has gone down like a submarine with no motor.”
Cosby was convicted of sexual assault in 2018, spending three years in prison before the conviction was overturned in 2021 because of a nonprosecution agreement. His conviction is known to be the first celebrity conviction during the peak of the Me Too era, launched by activist Tarana Burke. The movement was a call to empower survivors of sexual abuse and hold the perpetrators of the abuse accountable.
“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,” Motsinger said outside the courthouse on Monday, according to The New York Times. She added, “He in some way has to be accountable for what he did to me.”
Cosby’s attorney, Jennifer Bonjean, said she believes Cosby has a “strong appeal” he plans to pursue, the Times reported.