Bill Cosby ordered to pay $19m over sex abuse claim

2026-03-25 - 14:30

Donna Motsinger said she was working as a waitress more than 50 years ago. It was during this time when the performer began to target her. The hearing in Santa Monica was told how the comedian had initially come into the restaurant where the now 84-year-old Motsinger worked. One day, when he picked her up in his limousine, Cosby gave her a glass of wine. He also gave her what she thought was aspirin. She began slipping in and out of consciousness. 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. However, they said that any that had occurred had been consensual. ALSO READ: The Ellis Park revival giving Joburg kids a shot The jury took three days to deliver its verdict. They ordered Cosby to pay $19.3 million (about R330 million) , a figure that could increase if they add punitive damages. The case was heard in the same courthouse. In 2022, a jury there 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 he was freed in 2021 when his conviction was overturned on a technicality. Cosby was a towering figure in late 20th-century American popular culture. This included his starring role in The Cosby Show, which ran from 1984 to 1992. Dozens of women have accused Cosby of being a calculating, serial predator. They say he plied victims with sedatives and alcohol before assaulting them over four decades.