Sex abuse lawsuit against Prince Andrew can go forward: judge
The sex-abuse lawsuit filed by a longtime Jeffrey Epstein accuser against Prince Andrew can move forward to trial, a Manhattan judge ruled Wednesday.
In a 46-page decision, Judge Lewis Kaplan “denied in all respects” the royal’s numerous attempts to dismiss Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s suit against him.
Crucially, the judge insisted that Giuffre’s $500,000 settlement with Epstein was too “ambiguous” to cover Andrew — reasoning that the late pedophile likely had only been out to protect himself. The Duke of York had tried to aruge that the 2009 deal between Giuffre and Epstein shielded him from any liability stemming from her accusations.
The judge also dismissed the 61-year-old prince’s “meritless” suggestion that his accuser’s complaint needed to be “more definitive.”
“Ms. Giuffre’s complaint is neither ‘unintelligible’ nor ‘vague’ nor ‘ambiguous,'” Kaplan ruled of the detailed allegations that are “reprehensible” if true.
Wednesday’s ruling leaves the middle son of Queen Elizabeth II still facing trial in Manhattan federal court, scheduled for later this year.
One of Giuffre’s attorneys, Sigrid McCawley, hailed it as “another important step in Virginia‘s heroic and determined pursuit of justice as a survivor of sex trafficking.”
Giuffre, now 38, sued Andrew in August, claiming that Epstein and his recently convicted madam, Ghislaine Maxwell, made her have sex with the royal three times, starting in 2001 when she was just 17.
In his ruling, Kaplan noted how Giuffre’s lawsuit alleges Andrew “engaged in sexual acts with” her “without her consent, knowing her age, and knowing she was a sex-trafficking victim being forced to engage in those acts.”
Giuffre alleged that Andrew, Epstein and Maxwell “compelled her to engage in sexual acts by express or implied threat” — and she “feared death or physical injury” if she disobeyed.
If true, such actions “would have been reprehensible,” Kaplan wrote.
The alleged abuse happened in Maxwell’s London home as well as Epstein’s private island and his New York mansion, the latter accusation justifying the Manhattan complaint, Kaplan said.
However, she never accused the prince of abusing her in Florida, where the abuse central to her recently unsealed deal with Epstein took place.
There “is no suggestion in the Florida Case that [Andrew] was himself engaged in sex trafficking,” Kaplan noted.
The wording of the then-secret deal had even specifically forbidden Epstein from passing it to third parties to be able to use, the ruling noted.
Kaplan also surmised that Epstein’s was purely out “to protect himself” from future lawsuits with the $500,000 payout, which helped him skate further criminal prosecution.
Epstein likely wanted only to “gain as much protection for himself … and to do so for an acceptable price.”
Whatever the pedophile’s intentions were, his agreement was “far from a model of clear and precise drafting,” leaving Giuffre and Andrew to “disagree emphatically as to what it meant.”
“The parties have articulated at least two reasonable interpretations of the critical language,” Kaplan wrote of the deal “riddled with drafting problems and ambiguities.”
“The agreement therefore is ambiguous. Accordingly, the determination of the meaning of the release language in the 2009 Agreement must await further proceedings,” Kaplan wrote, saying it could still be used by Andrew’s team during trial.
Kaplan also dismissed Andrew’s claim that the deal must clear him because it had also protected embattled lawyer Alan Dershowitz from similar sex-abuse allegations by Giuffre.
The retired Harvard law professor was Epstein’s attorney in Florida, making him more clearly connected — and Andrew “was not necessarily correct” to say it covered him anyway, Kaplan wrote. Dershowitz has always denied the allegations.
The judge also staunchly defended Giuffre’s right to file the lawsuit using New York’s child victim’s act, which allowed historic allegations of abuse to still be brought to court.
Similar claims that it is unconstitutional have been “rejected by every New York state and federal court to have encountered it. And it has been rejected repeatedly for good reason,” he wrote.
After the decision, another of Giuffre’s lawyers, David Boies, said the accuser was “pleased” that “evidence will now be taken concerning her claims against him.”
“She looks forward to a judicial determination of the merits of those claims,” he said in a statement.
Boies has previously said he intends to depose up to a dozen people ahead of trial, including the prince himself.
They may also request to depose Meghan Markle because of her position as a US resident with ties to the royal family, Boies told Fox News in December.
“We want to have at least a couple of depositions of people who knew Prince Andrew and were sort of members of his inner circle at various times and who might have either have knowledge themselves or have knowledge about people who would have knowledge,” Boies told the news channel.
“Meghan Markle, because of her position in the family, is one of those people,” he said.
“And because she’s in the United States, it’s easier to take her deposition than people in the United Kingdom. She is somebody who we are considering,” Boies added.
Andrew has vehemently denied the allegations, denying during a 2019 BBC interview that he recalled ever having met his accuser, even suggesting that a now-famous photo of them together was fake.
He has never been criminally charged, and his lawyers previously said he “unequivocally denies Giuffre’s false allegations against him.” They did not immediately return a request for comment Wednesday.
Buckingham Palace said it would not comment on the “ongoing legal matter.”
With Post wires
