British Prince Andrew, embarrassed for years by his ties to the sulphurous financier Jeffrey Epstein, failed to have the civil complaint of an American woman who accused him of sexual assault dismissed in 2001, when she was 17 years old.
In this embarrassing case for Buckingham Palace, the second son of Queen Elizabeth, who vigorously denies the accusations, therefore still risks a civil trial.
If all appeals were dismissed, this trial could be held “between September and December” 2022, New York judge Lewis Kaplan said in the fall of 2021.
Virginia Giuffre, a 38-year-old American now living in Australia, has publicly named Andrew for years. But last summer, she decided to take the case to court and filed a lawsuit in New York City accusing her of being one of the powerful friends Jeffrey Epstein allegedly turned her over to have. sexually assault her.
Virginia Giuffre accuses the prince of sexually assaulting her three times in 2001, when she was 17, in London, New York and the US Virgin Islands.
She “is obviously happy” that the prince’s request “was rejected” and that evidence can now “be gathered” to support his complaint, reacted his lawyer, David Boies.
“Ambiguous” agreement
The prince’s camp has been doing everything for six months to convince the American justice to abandon this procedure. This time, to obtain the rejection of the complaint, his lawyers had brandished an agreement of 2009, by which Virginia Giuffre undertook not to prosecute Jeffrey Epstein, as well as “other potential defendants”, against compensation of 500,000 US dollars from the multimillionaire.
But in a 46-page decision, Judge Kaplan considers that the agreement “is far from being a model of clarity and precision in its drafting”, calling it “ambiguous”. Consequently, he judges that the prince’s request must be “refused in all respects”.
Virginia Giuffre’s lawyers maintained that the prince was in no way “covered” by the transaction of 2009, applicable according to them only in Florida – Epstein had one of his residences in Palm Beach – and of which he did not “even no knowledge ”at the time.
The prince, 61, has been embarrassed for years by his ties to Jeffrey Epstein, who died in prison in 2019, and his former partner Ghislaine Maxwell, found guilty in December of sex trafficking in Manhattan federal court and who now risks dozens. years in prison.
Playboy turned outcast
The one who looked like playboy and courageous soldier within the British royal family, and who appears today as an outcast, denies “categorically” having attacked Virginia Giuffre.
In an interview deemed calamitous on the BBC in November 2019, the prince even claimed not to remember the young girl. He also denied having danced “sweaty” with her in a London nightclub more than 20 years ago, as she had recounted, arguing that it had been impossible to “sweat” since the Falklands War in 1982. , where his body would have secreted too much adrenaline.
As part of the proceedings in New York, Virginia Giuffre’s lawyers are asking those of Andrew for a medical certificate attesting that his body is not sweating.
Widely distributed, a number of photos attest to the proximity between Andrew, Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell and Virginia Giuffre. A 2000 snapshot shows the American financier, British socialite and the Prince hunting in the east of England. In another, Andrew and Virginia Giuffre are holding each other at the waist, all smiles, with Ghislaine Maxwell in the background.
Judge Kaplan had rejected on December 31 another nullity request filed by the prince on the grounds that Virginia Giuffre could not file a complaint in the United States since she resides in Australia.