March 24, 2026
Mark Makela/Imagn Images
In a civil trial in California, Bill Cosby was ordered to pay $59.25 million to a woman who sued him for drugging and sexually assaulting her after a comedy show in 1972. Cosby, 88, is shown above at the Montgomery County Courthouse during his 2017 criminal trial.
A California civil jury has ordered Bill Cosby to pay $59.2 million in damages to a former waitress he drugged and sexually assaulted after taking her to one of his comedy shows in 1972.
The former comedian and actor was found liable Monday in the civil case brought by Donna Motsinger, one of dozens of women who have accused Cosby of sex crimes spanning decades.
In her complaint, Motsinger said she met Cosby, now 88, at the restaurant where she worked ahead of his 1972 performance at the Circle Star Theater in San Carlos, California. Cosby recorded a special that night, "Inside the Mind of Bill Cosby," and had invited Motsinger backstage for the show.
Motsinger alleged Cosby gave her wine and a pill that she believed was an aspirin. She became ill and lost consciousness of what happened in the hours that followed.
"The last thing Ms. Motsinger recalls were flashes of light," said the complaint filed three years ago in Los Angeles Superior Court. "She woke up in her house with all her clothes off, except her underwear on – no top, no bra, and no pants.”
The jury awarded Motsinger $19.25 million in compensation for pain and suffering. Cosby was ordered to pay Motsinger another $40 million in punitive damages in a second judgment.
Among the witnesses who testified on Motsinger's behalf was Andrea Constand, the former Temple University employee who was at the center of Cosby's criminal trial in Montgomery County in 2018.
Cosby was convicted of drugging and raping Constand at his Elkins Park home in 2004. Three years into his 10-year prison sentence, the verdict was tossed by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court on procedural grounds. Cosby had been protected from criminal prosecution by a 2005 agreement with former Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce Castor, who had given Cosby immunity in exchange for his testimony in Constand's 2006 civil trial.
Cosby maintains his innocence and has largely stayed out of the public eye since his release from prison in 2021. He did not testify in the Motsinger trial. Jennifer Bonjean, Cosby's attorney, said he will appeal Monday's judgment and challenge the size of the award.
During his deposition in the Motsinger case last fall, Cosby testified that he has stopped working and his finances have been depleted in the years since his accusers began coming forward, the New York Times reported.
“That means I have not earned a cent through my being an entertainer, a writer, a television performer, except in reruns, and my net worth has gone down like a submarine with no motor," Cosby said.
Before the jury's judgments Monday, an expert witness for Motsinger estimated Cosby's net worth stood at about $128 million. Two years ago, Cosby defaulted on $17.5 million in loans taken out on a New York City townhouse that he sold in October, and he also put a second New York City property on the market.
Mostinger's case is the second civil trial to find Cosby liable for sexual misconduct. In 2022, another California civil jury found Cosby guilty of sexually abusing Judy Huth when she was a 16-year-old girl at the Playboy Mansion in 1975. Huth was awarded $500,000 in the case.
Motsinger was able to file her complaint against Cosby due to a California reform that opened a window for sexual assault cases that previously would have been barred under the state's statute of limitations.
