Attorneys for a woman who said Bill Cosby sexually abused her more than 50 years ago while she was a server at a Sausalito restaurant are defending a $19.25 million verdict by a jury in her lawsuit against the comedian and say a defense motion for a new trial should be denied.
Donna Motsinger contended in her Santa Monica Superior Court sexual battery lawsuit that the actor/comedian drugged and raped her. In March, a jury awarded her $19.25 million in compensatory damages and $40 million in punitive damages.
Citing alleged court errors, Cosby’s attorneys have filed motions for a new trial or a judgment notwithstanding the verdict. But in court papers filed Tuesday with Judge Bradley S. Phillips, Motsinger’s attorneys say one trial was enough and there are no grounds for a second proceeding.
“The jury found that defendant William H. Cosby raped plaintiff Donna Motsinger and awarded damages to compensate her losses and punish Cosby for his reprehensible conduct,” Motsinger’s lawyers state in their court papers.
Unhappy with the result, Cosby wants the verdict set aside on grounds that some of the judge’s rulings “exceeded the bounds of reason” and prejudiced his right to a fair trial, according to the Motsinger attorneys’ pleadings. But the arguments only repeat points rejected previously by the judge after briefing and argument, the plaintiff’s lawyers further state in their court papers.
“There was no error, let alone prejudicial error, warranting a new trial,” according to the Motsinger attorneys’ court papers.
In addition, the judge was right to exclude from evidence Motsinger’s 1970s-era LSD and marijuana use as irrelevant, prejudicial and improper character evidence, the Motsinger attorneys further state in their pleadings.
“There is no suggestion she used either drug on the night (Cosby) drugged and raped her, so the evidence had no bearing on any disputed fact and far greater potential for prejudice than probative value,” according to the Motsinger attorneys’ court papers.
But in their court papers, Cosby’s attorneys say they were wrongly barred from introducing police notes showing prior inconsistent statements by Motsinger and that by barring the plaintiff’s prior drug use the court “sanitized plaintiff” and casted her in a false light before the jury.
“Plaintiff’s own use of drugs is highly probative of whether she would have unknowingly consumed two round white pills, falsely believing them to be aspirin,” according to Cosby’s lawyers’ pleadings.
According to Motsinger’s lawsuit, Cosby came into the Trident restaurant every day during a stretch of 1972. Motsinger worked there as a server and tended to Cosby at his table, the suit stated. One day when she was headed to her Mill Valley home he followed her, pulled up next to the plaintiff and asked her if she would like to attend a show he was performing in San Carlos, according to the complaint.
Motsinger agreed and Cosby said he would pick her up later, the suit stated. A limousine driver subsequently took Motsinger to the theater and on the way there Cosby gave her a glass of wine, the suit stated.
“She began to feel sick and Mr. Cosby gave her what she believed was an aspirin,” the suit stated, while adding that the next thing Motsinger knew she was going in and out of consciousness.
The last thing Motsinger remembers were flashes of light and waking up at home wearing only her underwear, the suit filed in September 2023 stated.
“She knew she had been drugged and raped by Bill Cosby,” the suit stated.
Attorneys for the 88-year-old Cosby said he did not remember any sexual contact with Motsinger, but if any occurred, it was consensual. The same lawyers also denied giving Motsinger drugs without her permission.
In June 2022, another Santa Monica civil jury found Bill Cosby liable for sexually abusing Judy Huth at the Playboy Mansion in 1975, when she was 16 years old. The panel awarded Huth $500,000.
Cosby was convicted in 2018 of sexually assaulting Andrea Constand in 2004. He served three years in prison, but his conviction was overturned in 2021 and he was released from custody.