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 Santa Monica Superior Court by Donna Motsinger, who accused the comedian and entertainer of sexual battery, alleging that he abused a server who he met at a Northern California restaurant in 1972.
Cosby, 88, denied the allegations. Representatives for Cosby did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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’s Supreme Court vacated the sentence, finding that he was denied protection against self-incrimination.
Cosby asserted his innocence in that case, saying he never “changed my stance or my story.”
