US Comedian Bill Cosby Ordered To Pay $19 Million In 1972 Sexual Assault Case

Last Updated:March 24, 2026, 03:55 IST

A US court found that Cosby, 88, was liable for the sexual battery and assault of Donna Motsinger and ordered him to pay over $19 million.

A US court on Monday found that actor and comedian Bill Cosby was liable for drugging and sexually assaulting a woman in 1972 and ordered him to pay her $19.25 million, five years after Cosby was freed from prison in Pennsylvania.

Donna Motsinger said she was working as a waitress more than 50 years ago when Cosby began to target her more than five decades ago. The hearing in Santa Monica, California, was told how the comedian had initially come into the restaurant where the now-84-year-old Motsinger worked.

After a nearly two-week trial, jurors found that Cosby, 88, was liable for the sexual battery and assault of Motsinger and ordered him to pay over $19 million. Cosby’s attorney, Jennifer Bonjean, said they are disappointed and fully intend to appeal the verdict, CNN reported.

What Happened?

Motsinger 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. When he picked her up in his limousine, Cosby gave her a glass of wine and what she thought was aspirin.

She began slipping in and out of consciousness, and the next thing she knew, she was waking up at home, wearing only her underwear. “She knew she had been drugged and raped by Bill Cosby," the suit said.

Attorneys said Cosby, 88, did not remember any sexual contact with Motsinger, but that any that had occurred had been consensual. Cosby’s lawyers argued that the allegations rested almost entirely on speculation and assumption, saying Motsinger “freely admits that she has no idea what happened."

Jurors awarded Motsinger $17.5 million in past damages and $1.75 million for future damages, including “mental suffering, loss of enjoyment of life, inconvenience, grief, anxiety, humiliation, and emotional distress." Cosby did not testify at the trial.

The case was heard in the same courthouse where a 2022 jury ordered Cosby to pay $500,000 in damages to Judy Huth after finding that he had molested her in 1975 when she was just 16 years old.

The man formerly known as “America’s Dad" was jailed in Pennsylvania for drugging and molesting a woman in a separate criminal case in 2018, but was freed in 2021 when his conviction was overturned on a technicality. Dozens of women have accused Cosby of being a calculating, serial predator who plied victims with sedatives and alcohol before assaulting them over four decades.

(with agency inputs)

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