Judge denies – A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge denied Bill Cosby’s request for a new trial after a civil jury found him liable for $19 million in damages in the 2023 suit brought by former waitress Donna Motsinger.
For Bill Cosby, it wasn’t the verdict that ended the push—it was the refusal to reopen the case.
On Friday. a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge denied Cosby’s request for a new trial after a civil jury recently found him liable for $19 million in damages in a sexual assault case. Judge Bradley S. Phillips ruled that Cosby did not prove there was “any irregularity” in the court proceedings that would have prevented him from getting a fair trial. Phillips also concluded the damages awarded to his accuser were not “excessive.”.
In Friday’s written order, Phillips said, “The Court finds that there was sufficient evidence … to support the jury’s finding that defendant’s conduct caused plaintiff’s damages.”
The civil jury decision centers on a lawsuit filed by Donna Motsinger, a former waitress now 84 years old. In March. a jury awarded her $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’s allegations trace a precise sequence of what happened on the night she says she was targeted. She 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. Her original complaint said. “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,” adding that “The last thing Ms. Motsinger recalls were flashes of light,” before waking up at her house in nothing but underwear.
Cosby has denied Motsinger’s allegations. He has also denied allegations made by dozens of other women who said they were drugged and sexually assaulted by the former actor.
The denial of a new trial comes after Cosby already served about three years in a Pennsylvania prison on sexual assault charges—before that case was overturned in 2021. In early April, Cosby filed a motion for a new trial in the Motsinger case.
Attorneys for Cosby did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Friday’s ruling.
For Motsinger. the courtroom fight moves into a new phase—not because the allegations will be retried. but because the attempt to revisit the decision has been shut down. The judge’s order left the jury’s finding and the damages intact. grounded in the conclusion that the trial included enough evidence to support the jury’s view of causation and that the award was not excessive.
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