A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge has denied Bill Cosby’s request for a new trial after a civil jury recently found he was liable for $19 million in damages in a sexual assault case.
Judge Bradley S. Phillips ruled Friday that Cosby did not prove there was “any irregularity” in the court proceedings that would have prevented him from getting a fair trial and that the damages awarded to his accuser were not “excessive.”
“The Court finds that there was sufficient evidence … to support the jury’s finding that defendant’s conduct caused plaintiff’s damages,” Phillips wrote in Friday’s order.
In March, a jury awarded former waitress Donna Motsinger $19.25 million in damages after she sued Cosby in 2023, alleging that the disgraced comedian drugged and sexually assaulted her in 1972 after escorting her to one of his shows.
Motsinger, now 84, claimed Cosby picked her up at her home and gave her wine and a pill she thought was aspirin on the way to the venue.
“Next thing she knew, she was going in and out of consciousness while two men attending to Mr. Cosby were putting her in the limousine,” the original complaint said. “The last thing Ms. Motsinger recalls were flashes of light,” before waking up in her house in nothing but underwear.
Cosby has denied Motsinger’s allegations, as well as those brought by dozens of other women who said they had been drugged and sexually assaulted by the former actor. Cosby served about three years in a Pennsylvania prison on sexual assault charges before that case was overturned in 2021.
Cosby had filed a motion for a new trial in the Motsinger case in early April. Attorneys for Cosby did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Friday’s ruling.
Times staff writer Fedor Zarkhin contributed to this report.
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