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.
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.”
https://nypost.com/2022/01/12/prince-and...ard-judge/