Woman Who Says Bill Cosby Drugged and Raped Her in 1972 Wins $19.3 Million Jury Award
Source: Rolling Stone
Woman Who Says Bill Cosby Drugged and Raped Her in 1972 Wins $19.3 Million Jury Award
Nancy Dillon
Mon, March 23, 2026 at 2:29 PM EDT
6 min read
A woman who claims Bill Cosby drugged and raped her in 1972 won a $19.25 million jury award on Monday, decades after first stepping forward as Jane Doe Number 8 in the 2005 lawsuit filed by former Temple University athletics director Andrea Constand against the disgraced comedian.
Jurors found Cosby liable for the sexual assault of an intoxicated woman as well as sexual battery. They awarded plaintiff Donna Motsinger $17.5 million for past mental suffering and $1.75 million for future suffering. In another major finding, they determined Cosby acted with “malice, oppression, or fraud,” opening the door to punitive damages to be decided in a second phase of the trial.
The verdict came after an emotional trial in Santa Monica, California, that started March 10. It was in the same courthouse nearly four years ago that fellow accuser Judy Huth won a jury award after suing Cosby with claims he sexually assaulted her at the Playboy Mansion in 1975, when she was 16 years old, and he was 37.
In her testimony and court filings, Motsinger, 84, claimed Cosby befriended her while she was working as a waitress at a popular restaurant in Sausalito, California, called The Trident. She said Cosby later invited her to the recording of his standup act Inside the Mind of Bill Cosby at the Circle Star Theater in nearby San Carlos. She alleged Cosby gave her wine that made her feel sick and then gave her two round white pills she thought were aspirin.
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Read more: https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/woman-says-bill-cosby-drugged-182950365.html