A civil jury in California discovered Monday that Invoice Cosby was chargeable for drugging and sexually assaulting a lady in 1972 and awarded her $59.25 million.
After a virtually two-week trial in Santa Monica, jurors discovered Cosby, 88, chargeable for the sexual battery and assault of Donna Motsinger. They awarded her $17.5 million in previous damages and $1.75 million for future damages, together with “psychological struggling, lack of enjoyment of life, inconvenience, grief, anxiousness, humiliation, and emotional misery.”
Then, in a second part of the trial Monday afternoon, jurors awarded a further $40 million in punitive damages.
Cosby’s lawyer, Jennifer Bonjean, mentioned in an e-mail after the preliminary award earlier Monday that they’re upset and totally intend to enchantment the decision. She didn’t instantly reply to a request for touch upon the punitive damages.
Deliberations lasted about two days.
The choice got here almost 5 years after Cosby was free of jail in Pennsylvania when the state Supreme Court docket threw out a felony conviction primarily based on related allegations. He has settled some related lawsuits and has been ordered to pay in others, however Monday’s award is probably going essentially the most he has been ordered to pay in a case.
“This verdict is not only about me — it is about lastly being heard and holding Mr. Cosby accountable,” Motsinger mentioned in a press release. “I’ve carried the burden of what occurred to me for greater than 50 years. It by no means goes away. Immediately, a jury noticed the reality and held him accountable. Meaning every little thing. I hope this offers energy to different survivors who’re nonetheless ready for his or her second to be heard.”
Motsinger had been a server at a restaurant in Sausalito close to San Francisco who mentioned in her lawsuit, filed in 2023, that Cosby had invited her to his stand-up comedy present at a theater in close by San Carlos. Each have been of their 30s on the time. She mentioned Cosby gave her wine and two tablets that she believed have been aspirin, and that she was going out and in of consciousness as two males put her in a limousine.
“She awakened in her home with all her garments off, besides her underwear on – no prime, no bra, and no pants,” the lawsuit mentioned. “She knew she had been drugged and raped by Invoice Cosby.”
In court docket filings, Cosby’s attorneys argued that the allegations rested virtually totally on hypothesis and assumption, saying Motsinger “freely admits that she has no concept what occurred.”
Cosby didn’t testify on the trial, whose witnesses included Andrea Constand, the Temple College sports activities administrator he was convicted of sexually assaulting in a Pennsylvania felony court docket in 2018. The state’s Supreme Court docket threw out the decision and Cosby was free of jail after serving almost three years of a three- to 10-year sentence.
Motsinger first made her allegations anonymously in a 2005 lawsuit filed by Constand.
The Related Press doesn’t usually identify individuals who say they’ve been sexually abused until they arrive ahead publicly and consent to be named, as Constand and Motsinger have.
In 2022, a jury in Santa Monica awarded $500,000 to a lady who mentioned Cosby sexually assaulted her on the Playboy Mansion when she was a teen in 1975.
Motsinger’s lawsuit echoed allegations of rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment made by at the least 60 ladies towards Cosby, all of which he has denied.
The previous stand-up comedy and tv celebrity as soon as extensively often known as “America’s Dad” grew to become the primary celeb tried and convicted within the #MeToo period earlier than his conviction was completely thrown out when an appeals court docket discovered he gave incriminating testimony in a deposition solely after believing he had immunity from prosecution.
