The legal system just handed down another headline, and this one comes with a very expensive price tag for Bill Cosby.
A California jury has ordered him to pay $19 million to a woman, Donna Motsinger, who accused him of drugging and raping her back in 1972. Yes, 1972. That’s not a typo. We’re talking decades later, and the bill has finally arrived with interest, apparently.
Now let’s pause for a second. Nineteen million dollars is not “check your couch cushions” money. That’s “somebody’s accountant is sweating” money. And while money doesn’t magically fix everything, the verdict is still a major moment in a case that has been hanging around longer than some people’s grandparents’ furniture.
Donna Motsinger said the former star gave her wine and a pill that left her incapacitated after picking her up at her home in a limousine in 1972.
Motsinger, now 84, used to work as a waitress at a restaurant called the Trident in Sausalito, near San Francisco, that was a haunt for celebrities, including Cosby.
She alleged in her lawsuit that Cosby invited her to one of his stand-up comedy shows and after picking her up to drive her to the gig he gave her a pill that she thought was aspirin, according to the court papers.
“Next thing she knew, she was going in and out of consciousness,” her legal action said, according to the Los Angeles Times. “The last thing Ms Motsinger recalls were flashes of light.”
The filing said she woke up at home naked except for her underwear and “she knew she had been drugged and raped by Bill Cosby”.
Cosby’s lawyers rejected the allegation, arguing in court filings that Motsinger “freely admits that she has no idea what happened”, reports AP news agency.
So yes, $19 million is a lot of money, but the bigger takeaway? Accountability doesn’t have an expiration date, even if it takes decades, sometimes the bill still comes due.
