Prince Andrew’s attempt to have the civil action for sexual assault rejected has been rejected.
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A judge in New York has decided that the civil lawsuit against Britain’s Prince Andrew will be processed, several media outlets such as the BBC and Sky News.
The prince is being sued by Virginia Giuffre, formerly known as Virginia Roberts, who accuses him of sexual abuse when she was in her teens.
Prince Andrew has denied the allegations and called for the civil lawsuit to be dismissed. After hearing arguments from both sides, Judge Lewis Kaplan chose to reject the prince’s request.
This means that the prince will face a civil trial later this year.
Giuffre claims that she was trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein, and that he forced her to have sex with Prince Andrew when she was 17 years old. The lawsuit was filed in August 2021 under the Child Victims Act, a law that allows victims of sexual abuse to file a lawsuit even if the case.
Prince Andrew has denied the allegations all along.
The judge has also rejected an earlier request to stop the civil lawsuit against Andrew, in which the lawyers claimed that Giuffre lived in Australia and not in the USA, where the case is being processed.
–Entered into an agreement with Epstein
Andrew’s lawyers have asked for the lawsuit to be dismissed on the grounds that Giuffre gave up the right to sue the prince when she entered into a settlement agreement with Epstein in 2009. At that time, Giuffre, formerly Roberts, was paid $ 500,000.
The agreement stated that Giuffre in turn agreed to “release, acquit and satisfy” Epstein and “any other person or entity that could have been included as a potential defendant”. The prince’s lawyer has in a hearing stated to the judge Prince Andrew “undoubtedly” could have been sued together with Epstein in 2009, and that he is therefore considered a person Giuffrre can not open a case against now.
Giuffre’s lawyer, on the other hand, argued that Andew would not have been a “potential defendant” in the 2009 case, as it did not contain any allegations that the prince himself was trafficking.
The prince says he can not remember meeting Giuffre and believes that the photograph above, which apparently shows him with his arm around her bare waist, must have been manipulated.
Also pictured is Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s ex-boyfriend. She was recently known guilty of to have recruited young girls who were then sexually abused by Epstein and his friends.
Epstein took his life in prison in 2019.
Large load
Judge Kaplan’s decision to let the trial run its course is described as a hard blow for the prince. The case has become a great burden for both himself and the royal family, who in 2015 rejected all accusations that Prince Andrew has had “inappropriate treatment of minors”.
Background: Asks Prince Andrew to document that he did not sweat
Four years later, in 2019, Andrew came out very poorly from an interview with the BBC. Here he tried unsuccessfully to distance himself from Epstein. He was criticized for being arrogant and for lacking empathy with Epstein’s victims.
In the end, the prince resigned all his official duties. The Royal Family announced that public buildings would not fly the flag for Prince Andrew on his birthday.
He has refused to comply with the request to meet with American investigators. He is not charged in any criminal case, and British police have refused to investigate the allegations.
But if the queen removed him from official duties, she has not beaten his hand off him. She has allegedly covered his legal costs, writes NTB.
He is also constantly photographed driving or riding around royal estates. But he did not appear in official photographs when his daughter Beatrice married in 2020, even though he followed her up the church floor.
Hero status
Prince Andrew was a helicopter pilot during the Falklands War against Argentina in 1982 and was praised on his return for his efforts. He left the Navy in 2001 and then became a special trade envoy for Britain.
Now he has been urged to relinquish his military honorary roles. It is also suggested that he may lose his title as Duke of York.
Businesses and charities have distanced themselves from his projects, and he lives a life more or less in isolation and loneliness.
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