Bill Cosby will plead the Fifth Amendment in a civil lawsuit alleging he sexually assaulted a 15-year-old girl at the Playboy Mansion in 1974, according to his lawyer.
An attorney for the 84-year-old comedian told a Los Angeles Superior Court judge Wednesday that he will invoke his right to remain silent amid fears he could be prosecuted again.
Judy Huth alleges Cosby plied her and a friend with pills and alcohol at Hugh Hefner's Playboy Mansion in California when she was 15, before sexually assaulting her.
She sued Cosby in civil court in 2014 but the case was put on hold in 2016 amid the criminal case against the comedian.
Huth is one of at least 60 women who have accused the disgraced comedian of sexual assault and misconduct over the years but, due to the statute of limitations expiring in many cases, Cosby was only ever convicted of assaulting one woman.
He was sentenced in 2018 to three to 10 years for drugging and sexually assaulting Temple University sports administrator Andrea Constand at his home in Pennsylvania in 2004.
However, his conviction was overturned in a stunning ruling in June after Pennsylvania's highest court found that the prosecutor who brought the case was bound by his predecessor's promise not to prosecute Cosby.
The court found that the promise not to charge him led Cosby to incriminate himself in testimony that was later used to put him away.
Bill Cosby returning to his home in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania on June 30 - the day he walked free from prison. Cosby will now plead the Fifth in a civil lawsuit alleging he sexually assaulted a 15-year-old girl at the Playboy Mansion in 1974, according to his lawyer
Judy Huth and Bill Cosby together in an undated image. Huth alleges Cosby plied her and a friend with pills and alcohol at Hugh Hefner's Playboy Mansion in California when she was 15, before sexually assaulting her
Cosby's attorney Michael Freedman said in a status conference report made public Wednesday, and seen by the Hollywood Reporter, that Cosby will not risk putting himself in that position again when it comes to Huth's civil case.
'Defendant does not agree that merely because the Pennsylvania Supreme Court vacated Defendant's criminal conviction for a single offense, allegedly arising from an incident that occurred in 2004, Defendant no longer enjoys a Fifth Amendment right to remain silent,' said Freedman.
'This is particularly so where numerous states have no criminal statutes of limitations for
