Bill Cosby Faces New Lawsuit Accusing Him of 1972 Rape

Another woman has filed a sexual assault lawsuit against Bill Cosby, this time alleging he drugged and raped her in the Seventies.

Donna Motsinger, who worked as a server at The Trident restaurant in Sausalito, California, claims in the lawsuit that the actor drugged her and sent her home with no clothes on but her underwear.

In the lawsuit, Motsinger claims that she met the actor at the Bay Area establishment and that he often visited the restaurant just to see her. Motsinger alleges that he invited her to his show at the Circle Star Theater in San Carlos and that Cosby picked her up in a limo.

Cosby then allegedly gave her a glass of wine during the drive and took her to a dressing room. Motsinger claims she began to feel sick and that the comedian gave her what she thought was an aspirin, but that after taking the pill, she began to fall out of consciousness. She alleges she “knew she had been drugged and raped by Bill Cosby.”

“In the limousine, Mr. Cosby sat near the window and put his arms around her. The last thing Ms. Motsinger recalls were flashes of light,” the lawsuit read. “She woke up in her house with all her clothes off, except her underwear on – no top, no bra, and no pants.”

Production company Jemmin Inc., the now-dissolved MCA Inc., and Circle Star Theater Corp. also are named as defendants in the new lawsuit.

Motsinger is seeking unspecified damages, with her lawyer Jesse Creed telling Deadline that the organizations “not only provided a platform for Mr. Cosby to showcase his fame and fortune to lure in women, but then put their own profits over the safety of their female guests by turning a blind eye to Mr. Cosby’s alleged sexual assaults on women.”

In June, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned Bill Cosby’s 2018 sexual assault conviction following an appeal by his legal team, ruling that the prosecutor who brought the case was bound by his predecessor’s agreement not to charge the actor. Cosby was in the midst of serving the third year in his three-to-10-year prison sentence following his conviction on three counts of indecent aggravated assault against Andrea Constand. 

The following August, Morganne Picard filed a lawsuit against Cosby under the Adult Survivors Act and claimed he abused her between 1987 and 1990. Linda Ridgway-Whitedeer, who first publicly accused Cosby in 2015, also filed her suit under the new California law in September and accused the disgraced actor of forcing her to perform oral sex on him during an audition in 1971.

Last June, a jury found Cosby guilty of the sexual battery of a 16-year-old girl in the Seventies, awarding the plaintiff $500,000. 

From Rolling Stone US.