Prince Andrew has failed to have the civil lawsuit which claims he sexually assaulted Virginia Giuffre dismissed by a New York judge.
Giuffre alleges the Queen’s son sexually assaulted her when she was 17 years old, after she was trafficked by his former friend, the late Jeffrey Epstein — who she also claims assaulted her when she was 16.
The Prince denies the allegations and his lawyers attempted to have the case thrown out, after it was discovered Giuffre made a $500,000 settlement agreement with the convicted sex offender Epstein in 2009. However, they were not successful and the case will still go to court.
Giuffre’s agreement with Epstein came to light after a previously confidential 12-page document disclosing the terms of the settlement was made public. In the settlement, it states that after Giuffre - referenced by her maiden name Roberts - received the sum, she agrees to: ‘remise, release, acquit, satisfy and forever discharge the said second parties and any other person or entity who could have been included as a potential defendant…for all, and all manner of, action and actions of Virginia Roberts including state or federal, case and causes of action.’
Although the document doesn’t mention Prince Andrew by name, his representative Andrew B Brettler told a New York court that the settlement should end the lawsuit. He argued it ‘releases Prince Andrew and other from any purported liability arising from the claims Ms Giuffre asserted against Prince Andrew here.’
But Giuffre’s lawyer, David Boies, responded that the document was ‘irrelevant to the case against Prince Andrew', with some critics describing the document as immoral as it was designed to protect the convicted sex offender Epstein.
The judge Lewis Kaplan has now decided the case will still go to court in New York, with the trial likely to take place sometime in the autumn.
Ahead of the trial, Giuffre’s lawyers have requested evidence that Prince Andrew cannot sweat after he famously said he couldn’t perspire in a Newsnight interview. Giuffre claimed the duke was ‘sweating profusely all over me’ at a London club where he allegedly assaulted her in 2001.
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