Bill Cosby could be left in dire financial straits following a $59.25 million judgment awarded to the woman who accused him of drugging and raping her more than five decades ago. The decision in favor of Donna Motsinger calls into question the net worth of the 88-year-old comedian, who is now held liable for the alleged 1972 sexual assault.
Ms. Motsinger alleged she was working as a server at the Trident restaurant in Sausalito, California, in 1972 when Cosby frequented the establishment and later invited her to attend one of his shows at the Circle Star Theater in San Carlos. While traveling to the show in Cosby’s limousine, she said he gave her a glass of wine. In the theater’s dressing room, she began to feel ill and Cosby gave her what she believed was aspirin. She later woke up in her home wearing only underwear, determining she had been raped.
The jury reached its initial verdict after three days of deliberations, awarding Ms. Motsinger $19.25 million in compensatory damages for pain and suffering. In a second phase of the trial held the same day to determine punitive damages, jurors added another $40 million, bringing the total judgment to $59.25 million.
“It has been 54 years to get justice,” Ms. Motsinger said after the verdict at the Santa Monica courthouse, calling the damages “icing on the cake.” She said it mattered to her “that I’m believed and he, in some way, has to be accountable for what he did to me.”
Cosby, 88, did not testify at trial. His attorney, Jennifer Bonjean, said she plans to appeal and is considering challenging the size of the award. “A blind 88-year-old man can’t leave his house,” Ms. Bonjean argued against punitive damages.
The case was made possible by California’s amended statute of limitations laws, which allow accusers to bring sexual assault civil suits even after a lengthy passage of time. Ms. Motsinger filed her lawsuit in 2023. “We started working on this case in 2023,” said her attorney, Jesse Creed, “when the California legislature revived the debt that he owed Ms. Motsinger.”
An expert witness called by Ms. Motsinger’s legal team estimated Cosby’s net worth at roughly $128 million, a figure Cosby himself has disputed. In a deposition in the Motsinger case, he acknowledged the financial toll of recent years, saying he had not earned anything through his entertainment work in roughly a decade and that his net worth had “gone down like a submarine with no motor.” He has faced foreclosure on two New York properties and sold a Manhattan townhouse last year for $28 million.
Once considered one of the most beloved entertainers in American television history, Cosby has largely retreated from public view amid widespread allegations of sexual misconduct. Dozens of women have accused him of drugging and assault. In 2018, he was convicted of sexually assaulting Andrea Constand, a former Temple University employee, and sentenced to three to 10 years in prison. He served three years before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned the conviction in 2021, ruling that prosecutors had violated his rights by charging him after a previous prosecutor had promised not to do so. Constand testified as a witness during the Motsinger trial, along with two other accusers.
Monday’s verdict marks the second time a civil jury has ruled against Cosby since his release from prison. In 2022, Los Angeles County jurors found that Cosby sexually assaulted Judy Huth, who was 16 years old at the time of the alleged incident at the Playboy Mansion in 1975.
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