{"id":401128,"date":"2026-03-24T09:40:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T09:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/401128\/"},"modified":"2026-03-24T09:40:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T09:40:12","slug":"bill-cosby-found-liable-for-1972-sexual-assault","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/401128\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill Cosby found liable for 1972 sexual assault"},"content":{"rendered":"

LOS ANGELES (AP) \u2014 A civil jury in California found Monday that Bill Cosby<\/a> was liable for drugging and sexually assaulting a woman in 1972 and awarded her $59.25 million. <\/p>\n

After a nearly two-week trial in Santa Monica, jurors found Cosby, 88, liable for the sexual battery and assault of Donna Motsinger. They awarded her $17.5 million in past damages and $1.75 million for future damages, including \u201cmental suffering, loss of enjoyment of life, inconvenience, grief, anxiety, humiliation, and emotional distress.\u201d <\/p>\n

Then in a second phase of the trial Monday afternoon, they awarded an additional $40 million in punitive damages. <\/p>\n

Cosby\u2019s attorney, Jennifer Bonjean<\/a>, said in an email after the initial award earlier Monday that they are disappointed and fully intend to appeal the verdict. She did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the punitive damages. <\/p>\n

Deliberations lasted about two days. <\/p>\n

The decision came nearly five years after Cosby was freed from prison<\/a> in Pennsylvania when the state Supreme Court threw out a criminal conviction based on similar allegations. He has settled some similar lawsuits and has been ordered to pay in others, but Monday\u2019s award is likely the most he has had to pay in a case. <\/p>\n

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\u201cThis verdict is not just about me \u2013 it\u2019s about finally being heard and holding Mr. Cosby accountable,\u201d Motsinger said in a statement. \u201cI have carried the weight of what happened to me for more than 50 years. It never goes away. Today, a jury saw the truth and held him accountable. That means everything. I hope this gives strength to other survivors who are still waiting for their moment to be heard.\u201d<\/p>\n

Motsinger had been a server at a restaurant in Sausalito near San Francisco who said in her lawsuit, filed in 2023, that Cosby had invited her to his stand-up comedy show at a theater in nearby San Carlos. Both were in their 30s at the time. She said Cosby gave her wine and two pills that she believed were aspirin, and that she was going in and out of consciousness as two men put her in a limousine. <\/p>\n

\u201cShe woke up in her house with all her clothes off, except her underwear on \u2013 no top, no bra, and no pants,\u201d the lawsuit said. \u201cShe knew she had been drugged and raped by Bill Cosby.\u201d <\/p>\n

In court filings, Cosby\u2019s lawyers argued that the allegations rested almost entirely on speculation and assumption, saying Motsinger \u201cfreely admits that she has no idea what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

Motsinger\u2019s lawsuit moved with surprising quickness through the California courts, taking just 2 1\/2 years from filing until verdict while other lawsuits against him stalled. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are grateful to the jury for their careful attention to the evidence and to Ms. Motsinger for the extraordinary courage it took to come forward,\u201d said Jesse Creed, one of her attorneys from the Panish Shea Ravipudi law firm that represented her. <\/p>\n

Cosby did not testify at the trial, whose witnesses included Andrea Constand<\/a>, the Temple University sports administrator he was convicted of sexually assaulting in a Pennsylvania criminal court in 2018. The state\u2019s Supreme Court threw out the verdict and Cosby was freed from prison after serving nearly three years of a three- to 10-year sentence. <\/p>\n

Motsinger first made her allegations anonymously in a 2005 lawsuit filed by Constand. <\/p>\n

The Associated Press does not typically name people who say they have been sexually abused unless they come forward publicly and consent to be named, as Constand and Motsinger have. <\/p>\n

In 2022, a jury in Santa Monica awarded $500,000 to a woman who said Cosby sexually assaulted her<\/a> at the Playboy Mansion when she was a teenager in 1975. <\/p>\n

Motsinger\u2019s lawsuit echoed allegations of rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment made by at least 60 women against Cosby, all of which he has denied. <\/p>\n

The former stand-up comedy and television superstar once widely known as \u201cAmerica\u2019s Dad\u201d became the first celebrity tried and convicted<\/a> in the #MeToo era before his conviction was permanently thrown out when appeals court found he gave incriminating testimony in a deposition only after believing he had immunity from prosecution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES (AP) \u2014 A civil jury in California found Monday that Bill Cosby was liable for drugging…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":401129,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[268],"tags":[182022,23912,15412,152623,1374,434,27,18,117,3334,19,17,182024,182023,123612,4075,4076,59861,6310,68386,73095,55020,4077],"class_list":["post-401128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-andrea-constand","tag-ap-top-news","tag-assault","tag-bill-cosby","tag-california","tag-celebrities","tag-courts","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-general-news","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-jennifer-bonjean","tag-jesse-creed","tag-juries","tag-lawsuits","tag-legal-proceedings","tag-pa-state-wire","tag-pennsylvania","tag-santa-monica","tag-sexual-assault","tag-trials","tag-u-s-news"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116283495612971704","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=401128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401128\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/401129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}