Speaker 1: Hey there, folks.
Speaker 2: It is Tuesday, March twenty fourth, and a California jury
Speaker 2: has found Bill Cosby liable for a sexual assault that
Speaker 2: happened before Amy Robock and I were even born. And
Speaker 2: with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ
Speaker 2: fifty plus years ago we're talking about. And a jury
Speaker 2: just said, mister Cosby, you need to pay a huge
Speaker 2: amount to this woman for something that happened in nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy two.
Speaker 1: Do I have that right?
Speaker 3: Yes, nineteen seventy two.
Speaker 4: It happened on one occasion, and a jury took more
Speaker 4: than two days to deliberate, but they have awarded this
Speaker 4: woman fifty nine point two five million dollars for her.
Speaker 3: Pain and suffering and for punitive damages. In this case.
Speaker 3: It was the largest verdict so far.
Speaker 2: So far, we say, And to be quite honest with you,
Speaker 2: it's hard to keep up. Every time I see a
Speaker 2: Harvey Weinstein update about a trial day, I'm like, Wow,
Speaker 2: he's still dealing with legal stuff. I'd be honest with you,
Speaker 2: I didn't realize Bill Cosby is still dealing with lawsuits
Speaker 2: that are flying all over Bliss.
Speaker 4: He certainly is, And this was a doozy of a lawsuit.
Speaker 4: And look, she testified, took the stand, described what happened
Speaker 4: to her. She said on that day in nineteen seventy two,
Speaker 4: three other women testified of having similar encounters with Bill Cosby.
Speaker 3: He did not take the.
Speaker 4: Stand, and it's interesting to hear what he said in deposition.
Speaker 4: It wasn't He's denied, by the way, ever assaulting a woman.
Speaker 4: He says that any sex he had in even any
Speaker 4: coeludes he gave women, which he's admitted to doing, have
Speaker 4: all been consensual that they agreed to take them. So
Speaker 4: he admitted to having extramarital affairs and being a womanizer
Speaker 4: and even drugging women, but he said it was all consensual.
Speaker 2: And again Bill Cosby at this point has been out
Speaker 2: of prison for several years. He had a ten year
Speaker 2: prison Three to ten years is what it was supposed
Speaker 2: to be. He served three because a was Supreme Court
Speaker 2: throughout the criminal conviction. So everything that's going on with
Speaker 2: Bill Cosby, all the accusations and things, one conviction and
Speaker 2: that one was thrown out. So from a criminal standpoint,
Speaker 2: he's dealt with that part of these cases correct.
Speaker 4: And it was thrown out because a previous prosecutor had
Speaker 4: agreed to not prosecute, and so when they went ahead
Speaker 4: with a different prosecutor and pursued charges and he was
Speaker 4: found guilty. Ultimately, the Supreme Court said he should never
Speaker 4: have been charged in the first place, based on an
Speaker 4: agreement that had been in place in that state.
Speaker 2: So he's out of prison, been out of prison for
Speaker 2: several years. And a reminder, this is an eighty eight
Speaker 2: year old blind man at this point, and he is
Speaker 2: still facing a number of lawsuits. This one now has
Speaker 2: reached his conclusion and sixty million dollars. A lot of
Speaker 2: people are going to be paying attention to this. But
Speaker 2: this one had to do with a case in nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy two. A woman who was working in of all plays,
Speaker 2: places we Love actually Salsalito, California, out that the Beautiful
Speaker 2: Bay Area said she'd been invited to a show by
Speaker 2: Bill Cosby again nineteen seventy two. He had a comedy show.
Speaker 2: She says, yes, she was offered drugs by Bill Cosby,
Speaker 2: took them and again typical story that we've heard before,
Speaker 2: and was sexually assaulted.
Speaker 4: Yes, she said she thought it was aspirin. She said
Speaker 4: she had a headache. She said, he gave her wine.
Speaker 4: He picked her up in a limousine. She was a
Speaker 4: waitress at a restaurant there in Salcelito, so she caught
Speaker 4: his eye.
Speaker 3: He invited her to a show.
Speaker 4: She was excited, but she said when he gave her
Speaker 4: that pill that she thought was an aspirin, she said,
Speaker 4: she became incapacitated, and she testified about how she ultimately
Speaker 4: was in and out of consciousness. She remembers being backstage
Speaker 4: and she ended up waking up in her own home
Speaker 4: naked and realized that she had been sexually assaulted.
Speaker 1: And I guess folk Brogs should be addressed.
Speaker 2: Here we are is this is twenty twenty six, and
Speaker 2: we're talking about a sexual assault in nineteen seventy two.
Speaker 2: This is happening now. But this this woman has been
Speaker 2: actually trying to hold him accountable for twenty years almost.
Speaker 2: This is not the first time this has come up.
Speaker 4: Just now, correct and so yes, her reaction after the verdict,
Speaker 4: she mentions that she says it's been fifty four years
Speaker 4: to get justice. She says, I know it's not complete
Speaker 4: for the rest of the women, but I hope it
Speaker 4: helps them a little bit. And I thought this was interesting.
Speaker 4: She said, I know this wasn't a criminal trial. I
Speaker 4: know that I didn't get a guilty verdict, but she
Speaker 4: said it was important that she was believed and that
Speaker 4: Bill Cosby in some way was held accountable for what
Speaker 4: he did to her.
Speaker 3: And that makes sense.
Speaker 2: And yeah, this girl's mentioning there, this has gone through
Speaker 2: the process. She didn't just bring this up here all
Speaker 2: these years later. She had actually been on the record
Speaker 2: as early as two thousand and five with accusations she
Speaker 2: had made and tried to go through the criminal process.
Speaker 2: And again they changed even the law out there in
Speaker 2: California to allow for victims of sexual assault to have
Speaker 2: more time when it comes to a statute of limitations
Speaker 2: in the criminal or even civil cases we've seen in
Speaker 2: some places. But she was able to do this now,
Speaker 2: and why this is coming up, I find it pretty remarkable.
Speaker 1: I think I find it incredible.
Speaker 2: And some on the other side would even say, this
Speaker 2: doesn't make sense. How can you hold him accountable with
Speaker 2: something that happened that long ago? Who remembers when and what.
Speaker 2: That's part of his argument, and even his attorneys argue,
Speaker 2: you hold him liable for something that the woman even
Speaker 2: says herself. She doesn't exactly know what happened.
Speaker 3: Right, because she was drugged. She says she doesn't know.
Speaker 4: She just you know, a woman knows when she's had sex,
Speaker 4: or at least when someone has penetrated her. That's pretty
Speaker 4: obvious and coming in and out of consciousness, I think
Speaker 4: when you have When you take her account and the
Speaker 4: jury heard from three other women who had almost identical accounts,
Speaker 4: that became a strong enough case from a civil lawsuit standpoint,
Speaker 4: where the threshold is lower than it is in a
Speaker 4: criminal court. And it did take them a couple of
Speaker 4: days to come up with the verdict, but certainly it
Speaker 4: was a large sum of money. And speaking to not
Speaker 4: remembering things, it's interesting because yes, Cosby didn't testify, but
Speaker 4: in his deposition he said that he remembers being in
Speaker 4: a limo with Matzinger, and he remembers wanting to have
Speaker 4: sex with her, but he doesn't remember whether or not
Speaker 4: they did, and of course he denied completely doing anything
Speaker 4: to her non consensually, So that is interesting. But his
Speaker 4: lawyers not shockingly say they do plan on appealing, and
Speaker 4: they're also considering just simply challenging the size of the
Speaker 4: award because they say he can't afford it. They said,
Speaker 4: this is not a man who has worked in ten years.
Speaker 4: He doesn't have the funds. Although they had the prosecution
Speaker 4: or sorry it's not prosecution, but the the Matzinger attorneys.
Speaker 3: Said that they believe that Bill Cosby is still.
Speaker 4: Worth one hundred and twenty eight million dollars, so he
Speaker 4: can afford this nearly sixty million dollar lawsuit against him.
Speaker 1: And it was broken down.
Speaker 2: Some of this was different types of damages, but the
Speaker 2: chunk of it forty million or so, was to punish
Speaker 2: him literally, punitive damages for what had taken place. The
Speaker 2: rest kind of reimbursement for damages for mental.
Speaker 1: And all that stuff.
Speaker 2: But yeah, they actually the huge chunk of this was
Speaker 2: a message they were sending about punishing Bill Cosby. Bill Cosby, still,
Speaker 2: it's been a while, and it's been years. This is
Speaker 2: a reminder, but Robes, he's come down from that pedestal.
Speaker 2: But man, still, you've reminding of this story and just
Speaker 2: how big his star was and how influential of an
Speaker 2: entertainer he was in this country.
Speaker 4: Oh, the Cosby Show was everything, and that Look, we
Speaker 4: see these stories oftentimes where you've got these men in
Speaker 4: powerful positions, who are beloved, who are put up on
Speaker 4: a pedestal, who.
Speaker 3: Have been accused of abusing that power.
Speaker 4: But yes, to your point, the jury only well I
Speaker 4: say only, but when you look at almost sixty million dollars,
Speaker 4: only nineteen point twenty five million of that was for
Speaker 4: her pain and suffering. It was the forty million dollars
Speaker 4: that whopper of a judgment that.
Speaker 3: Was for punitive. You're right, that was to say, hey.
Speaker 4: We believe this woman, and you should be punished, even
Speaker 4: though you're not behind bars, you should be punished for
Speaker 4: what we now believe you did. Now, this is interesting
Speaker 4: because his attorney you mentioned Hayes blind. That is almost
Speaker 4: exactly what his attorney said. This isn't about providing deterrence.
Speaker 4: A blind eighty eight year old man can't leave his house.
Speaker 4: That was in part her response to the judgment against him.
Speaker 1: I mean punitive is punitive.
Speaker 2: It doesn't matter what age he is, and I mean right,
Speaker 2: nobody's saying he's a threat to the community necessarily. But
Speaker 2: the still, this is what justice. This is what justice
Speaker 2: can look like at this point. So if that will
Speaker 2: ever happen, who knows, we know what his imprint has been.
Speaker 2: We know this guy has made a lot of money
Speaker 2: over a lot of years, a lot of decades in
Speaker 2: his career, but sixty million hadn't work for a decade.
Speaker 2: Does he have that sitting around? Stay here, we'll explain
Speaker 2: what they say is financial situation looks like now are
Speaker 2: continuing here on this Tuesday morning here on Amy and TJ.
Speaker 2: Bill Cosby getting a sixty million dollar civil judgment against him,
Speaker 2: he said he's going to appeal it a rose. We
Speaker 2: don't know if he'll ever be if anybody will ever
Speaker 2: see that money, but quite frankly, his team is saying,
Speaker 2: you're not going to see it no matter what, because
Speaker 2: we ain't got it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're saying, I mean he had to sell. He's
Speaker 3: already had to. I believe two of his homes have
Speaker 3: been foreclosed upon.
Speaker 4: He did sell a Manhattan apartment for twenty eight million dollars,
Speaker 4: and he still does own more than one home in Pennsylvania,
Speaker 4: New York. So he does have tangible property. I'm not
Speaker 4: sure how they go about trying to acquire that or
Speaker 4: force him to pay.
Speaker 3: We've certainly seen civil judgments.
Speaker 4: OJ Simpson comes to mind, most notably where the Goldmans
Speaker 4: tried for decades to get money from him, and are
Speaker 4: still trying to get money from his estate at this point.
Speaker 3: So a lot of.
Speaker 4: These judgments sound like big deals, and they are big deals,
Speaker 4: but a lot of times they end up in practicality
Speaker 4: being symbolic rather than actually financially lucrative. And remember, Bill
Speaker 4: Cosby already had one other civil ruling against him back
Speaker 4: in twenty twenty two. I forgot about this, where a
Speaker 4: jury found him liable for sexually assaulting a then sixteen
Speaker 4: year old all the way back in nineteen seventy five.
Speaker 4: So even though his criminal conviction has been overturned, now
Speaker 4: he has two civil lawsuits that have been successfully wagered
Speaker 4: against him, and there are more in the wings.
Speaker 2: And this is a guy we have from mean, he's
Speaker 2: eighty eight. Who knows what kind of health he is
Speaker 2: in now, but he certainly don't know whims the last
Speaker 2: time we saw him in Well, he doesn't make public
Speaker 2: appearances obviously, but yeah, he's kept an incredibly low profile.
Speaker 2: He is living out his days and he is spending
Speaker 2: those glory years, right he should have been celebrated to
Speaker 2: the end of his days, still making appearances on television shows.
Speaker 2: The kind of hero he could have been, but all
Speaker 2: he's doing is waiting out his days robes and fighting lawsuits.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he was America's dad.
Speaker 4: I mean we both were at that age where that
Speaker 4: was such a juggernaut of a show, watched every single
Speaker 4: Thursday night.
Speaker 3: It was musty TV, and everyone loved him.
Speaker 4: It was such a crushing blow to hear all of
Speaker 4: these women's accounts, and yes there are now I think
Speaker 4: it's one of those things where we talk about Sean
Speaker 4: Diddycombs as well.
Speaker 3: You start to lose count.
Speaker 4: But by most accounts, there are more than a dozen
Speaker 4: other lawsuits against Bill Cosey that have been filed in
Speaker 4: multi states, including New York and Nevadas. So clearly a
Speaker 4: lot of those women and their attorneys were looking to
Speaker 4: see what would happen in this California civil case. And
Speaker 4: certainly when they see a payday and look, I say
Speaker 4: a payday again, we're not sure if this woman, Donna
Speaker 4: Montsinger will see a penny of this money, but to
Speaker 4: see a jury award nearly sixty million dollars and most
Speaker 4: of it punitively to Bill Cosby, will certainly send up
Speaker 4: the signals to so many other attorneys and now that
Speaker 4: California and other states have changed their laws on the
Speaker 4: statute of limitations, this is now paid the way for
Speaker 4: lawsuits like we saw yesterday in California.
Speaker 3: Well, we appreciate you listening to us.
Speaker 4: As always, everyone, I'm Amy Roebock alongside TJ.
Speaker 3: Holmes. We have Morning run coming up soon. Look for it.