NEW YORK | Britain’s Prince Andrew is seeking trial in a civil trial in New York to defend himself from charges he allegedly sexually assaulted a then underage American woman more than 20 years ago, his lawyers announced on Wednesday.
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“Prince Andrew hereby demands a trial by jury on all grounds invoked in the civil complaint” filed in August 2021 in New York by Virginia Giuffre, 38, who accuses the second son of Queen Elizabeth II of the sexually assaulted three times in 2001.
In a court document substantiated and filed Wednesday in federal court in Manhattan, the lawyers of Prince Andrew dispute point by point the accusations of Ms. Guiffre.
The latter, born Virginia Roberts and who now resides in Australia, was herself the victim of American financier Jeffrey Epstein, who committed suicide in prison in 2019, and his British accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, found guilty in December. in New York for sex trafficking of minors.
Prince Andrew is accused by Ms Giuffre of sexual assault in London, New York and the US Virgin Islands, residences of the sexual predator couple Epstein-Maxwell, when she was 17.
The Duke of York, who has just been stripped of his military titles by his mother Elizabeth II and now lives as an outcast, has always “categorically” disputed the facts, but failed in January to have American justice classify without further action. Virginia Giuffre’s complaint.
Which makes the prospect of a civil trial in New York increasingly likely.
