The Duke of York could face a civil trial in New York next autumn over the allegations that he sexually abused Virginia Giuffre when she was 17, a judge overseeing the case said yesterday.
Prince Andrew, 61, Giuffre and up to ten other witnesses will be expected to give depositions before the trial, lawyers for both sides indicated at a hearing.
There has been speculation that the list will include the duke’s ex-wife, Sarah, Duchess of York, and Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie after he said that he was with his daughters on a night when Giuffre alleges that she was forced to have sex with him.
In her lawsuit, filed in August, Giuffre alleges that she was recruited by the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein and “lent out” to his friends, including the duke. Epstein killed himself in prison in 2019 awaiting trial for sex trafficking.
The duke unequivocally denies Giuffre’s allegations. On Friday his lawyer, Simon Brettler, asked the judge to dismiss the case in a motion which accused Giuffre of seeking “another payday” and quoted from an interview a former boyfriend of hers gave to the New York Daily News, claiming that Giuffre “never looked like she was being held captive”.
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“The only party to this claim whose conduct has involved the willful recruitment and trafficking of young girls for sexual abuse is Giuffre herself,” Brettler wrote in a memorandum.
Yesterday he noted that Giuffre was sued last week by Rina Oh for defamation. In her suit, Oh said that between 2000 and 2001, when she was 21, she was abused and exploited by Epstein and Maxwell and his “inner circle”. She said the FBI and other investigators had concluded that this was the case, but Giuffre had accused her of being Epstein’s girlfriend, and recruiting other girls.
Giuffre “has maliciously reiterated and republished these defamations and slanders in prior and subsequent tweets and interviews on podcasts, TV and for magazines, as well as in her memoirs entitled Billionaire’s Playboy Club,” Oh said in her suit.
Brettler said that “that case will probably touch on similar issues” and could prove relevant “in this matter”.
The judge said he would give both sides until mid-December to decide whether they needed his assistance in obtaining depositions. “[For the trial] I will look at the possibility of September, but October through December … being the target here,” he said.