A woman who accused Bill Cosby of sexually abusing her more than five decades ago was awarded $19.2 million by a Southern California civil jury Monday, an attorney for the plaintiff said.
Punitive damages are still pending in the 2023 lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court in Santa Monica by Donna Motsinger, who accused him of sexual battery, alleging that he abused a server whom he met at a Northern California restaurant in 1972.
Cosby, 88, denied the allegations. In a statement, a former representative for Cosby said he was “deeply saddened” by the verdict, which he said sets a dangerous precedent “to allow decade-old allegations, presented without evidence or proof, to stand.”
Cosby was convicted in a separate case in Pennsylvania on three felony counts of aggravated indecent assault in 2018, after prosecutors charged him with drugging and assaulting Andrea Constand in 2004.
That case was overturned in 2021 after the state Supreme Court vacated the sentence, finding he was denied protection against self-incrimination.
Cosby asserted his innocence in that case, saying he never “changed my stance or my story.”
