(New York) Lawyers for British Prince Andrew on Tuesday demanded that American justice dismiss a civil complaint for "sexual assault" that an American filed in New York for facts dating back to 2001, when she was a minor .
Defenders of Queen Elizabeth's second son are building on a 2009 restitution and exemption agreement between the woman, Virginia Giuffre, and Jeffrey Epstein, the American multimillionaire who died in prison in 2019 and charged with sex crimes.
Lawyers say the 12-year-old settlement, released Monday by Manhattan federal court, also "protects" other "potential defendants" in Epstein's entourage, including his friend Prince Andrew.
It is precisely because Virginia Giuffre "gave up her rights to file a complaint against them by signing the 2009 agreement and that she received money from Mr. Epstein" that the prince is protected against legal action The Duke of York's attorney, Andrew Brettler, said in a teleconference hearing before Manhattan federal judge Lewis Kaplan.
The accuser and alleged victim of Andrew and Epstein "intended (to exonerate) a broad category of people, including royalty and businessmen," Brettler insisted.
" Without ambiguity "
Under the 2009 agreement, Ms. Giuffre had received $ 500,000 from Epstein and she pledged not to prosecute Epstein or "other potential defendants" around him.
Andrew's name is not mentioned there, but for his lawyer Mr. Brettler, "it is unambiguous."
On the contrary in Ms Giuffre's defense, the prince is not "covered" by the 2009 transaction and lawyer David Boies has repeated this before Judge Kaplan. The latter promised a decision "very soon" on the fate of this civil complaint filed in August in New York.
Virginia Giuffre, now 38, claims that Andrew "sexually assaulted" her three times in 2001 - when she was 17 and her name was Virginia Roberts - in London, New York and the US Virgin Islands . It was here that the Prince's friends resided, the couple formed at the time by Jeffrey Epstein and British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell.
International jet-set figure Epstein committed suicide in Manhattan prison in August 2019, aged 66, ahead of his trial for sex crimes against underage girls.
His partner and accomplice for three decades, Ghislaine Maxwell, 60, has been in prison since the summer of 2020. She was convicted last week in New York of sex trafficking teenage girls for Epstein and faces decades of imprisonment.
" Accountable "
Virginia Giuffre, who was not a plaintiff in the Maxwell trial, welcomed the ruling and said she hopes others will "be held to account", referring to Andrew.
The prince, 61, is not facing criminal charges and “categorically” denies assaulting Virginia Roberts at the time. He even claims not to remember this young girl.
The Manhattan judge had already rejected on December 31 a nullity request made by Andrew, on the grounds that Ms. Giuffre could not file a complaint in the United States, because she "resides" in Australia.
If all the princely remedies fail, a civil trial could be held “between September and December” 2022, Judge Kaplan said this fall.
Finally, Ms Giuffre's lawyers have been asking for weeks that Andrew provide a medical certificate that his body does not sweat, that he is never "sweaty."
Absence of "sweating"
In an interview with the BBC in November 2019, deemed calamitous, he had indeed denied having danced "sweaty" with Virginia Giuffre in a nightclub in London more than 20 years ago, as she had recounted. The prince is said to have suffered from the impossibility of "sweating" since the Falklands War in 1982, when his body was said to have secreted too much adrenaline.
Widely distributed, a number of photos attest to the proximity between Andrew, Epstein, Maxwell and Giuffre. A 2000 snapshot shows the American financier, British socialite and the prince on a hunting trip in eastern England. Another photo shows Andrew and Giuffre holding each other at the waist, all smiles, with Maxwell in the background.
For more than two years, the Maxwell-Epstein sex scandal has plunged the prince into turmoil and forced him to retire from public life.