Bill Cosby ordered to pay $19 million for 1972 rape

A California court on Monday ordered Bill Cosby, fallen glory of American television, to pay more than $19 million in damages to a woman, after she accused him of sexual assault. This civil decision, rendered on the third day of deliberations, adds to the case of the 88-year-old actor, accused by dozens of women of being a sexual predator.

During the hearing in Santa Monica, it was reported how the comedian drugged Donna Motsinger, now 84, in 1972 by slipping what she thought was a simple aspirin tablet into her wine glass.

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After losing consciousness, the woman who worked as a waitress claims to have woken up at home, wearing only her underwear. “She knew she had been drugged and raped by Bill Cosby”the complaint states.

The fall of ‘America’s Dad’

The case was tried in the same court where, in 2022, a jury ordered Bill Cosby to pay $500,000 in damages to Judy Huth after concluding that he had sexually assaulted her in 1975 when she was just 16 years old.

Once nicknamed “America’s Dad” for his role as a father in Cosby Showa hit television series that aired from 1984 to 1992, the actor was incarcerated in Pennsylvania in 2018 for drugging and sexually assaulting a woman in another criminal case. He was released in 2021 after his conviction was overturned for procedural violations.