The American who accuses Prince Andrew of sexual abuse under the influence of financier Jeffrey Epstein when she was a minor filed a complaint on Monday in New York against this member of the British royal family, she said with her lawyer.
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The complaint, consulted by AFP, claims that the Duke of York, second son of the Queen of England, is “one of the powerful men” to whom Virginia Giuffre was “handed over for sexual purposes” when she was the victim between 2000 and 2002, from the age of 16, of the vast sex trafficking for which the financier Jeffrey Epstein was indicted and imprisoned, before taking his own life in a Manhattan prison, at the summer 2019.
Prince Andrew, who had already rejected these allegations, is accused in the complaint of having “sexually assaulted” Mrs. Giuffre, then underage, on three occasions: in London at a very close to Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, and in the properties of businessman in New York and the Virgin Islands.
“I hold Prince Andrew responsible for what he did to me. The powerful and the rich are not exempt from accountability. I hope that other victims will see that it is possible not to live in silence and fear, ”said Virgnia Giuffre in a statement sent to the media.
Now 61, Prince Andrew “categorically” denied such accusations in an interview deemed calamitous to the BBC in November 2019. He had notably expressed doubts about the authenticity of a high-profile photo showing him with Virginia Giuffre and, in the background, Ghislaine Maxwell, who remains in the Epstein case.
Despite his denials, his association with the American businessman had plunged him into turmoil and forced him to retire from public life.
The lawsuit was filed in Manhattan federal court on Monday, under a New York state juvenile victims law, which gives a one-year time limit for filing a sexual abuse claim, without a statute of limitations. . This law, which entered into force in August 2019, still leaves a few days for potential victims to act.
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