bill cosby was hit with a $19 million jury verdict Monday in a civil trial in Santa Monica, California, involving allegations dating back more than five decades.
What happened in the Donna Motsinger case against Bill Cosby?
A jury returned the $19 million verdict against bill cosby in a case brought by Donna Motsinger, who said he drugged and raped her in 1972 after the two met at a restaurant in Sausalito. Motsinger said she was given a glass of wine while riding in a limousine and began slipping in and out of consciousness soon afterward.
The jury also reached a finding of punitive damages. The punitive-damages issue was described as one that would be addressed in a second phase of the trial, after jurors determined Cosby acted with “malice, oppression, or fraud, ” a finding that opened the door to punitive damages.
What did jurors decide, and how did they calculate damages?
Jurors found Cosby liable for the sexual assault of an intoxicated woman as well as sexual battery. The jury award was described as $17. 5 million for past mental suffering and $1. 75 million for future suffering, totaling $19. 25 million.
The trial was described as emotional and began March 10 in Santa Monica. In addition to Motsinger’s testimony and court filings, jurors heard testimony from Andrea Constand and two other accusers, Victoria Valentino and Janice Baker Kinney.
What evidence was highlighted at trial?
In closing arguments, Motsinger’s lawyer, Spencer Lucas of Panish, Shea, Ravipudi LLP, played excerpts from a videotaped deposition in which Cosby said he had obtained a prescription for Quaaludes during a poker game with a doctor and responded “Yes” when asked if the prescription was written “at the poker table. ”
In the same deposition excerpts, Cosby responded “Yes” when asked whether, when he got the prescription for Quaaludes, he had it in his mind to offer them to young women he wanted to have sex with. Asked how he knew that a woman who he gave a Quaalude to was capable of consent, Cosby responded, “I didn’t, ” as presented in court.
Motsinger’s lawsuit described her account of becoming sick after being given wine and then being given two round white pills she thought were aspirin, followed by gaps in memory and waking up at home with her clothes removed except for her underwear. In his closing argument, Lucas argued that Cosby “surreptitiously drugged women with sedatives, often combined with alcohol, with the intent of rendering them unconscious, ” and said the evidence showed Cosby filled the prescription seven times, obtaining a total of 210 Quaalude pills.
Cosby has denied assaulting any of the dozens of women referenced in the case narrative.
