Prince Andrew rejected in effort to get US sexual
abuse case dismissed
Virginia Giuffre’s civil claim against duke can move
forward, federal judge rules in New York
This
article contains descriptions of sexual abuse
Victoria
Bekiempis in New York
Wed 12 Jan
2022 14.27 GMT
Longtime
Prince Andrew accuser Virginia Giuffre’s sexual abuse lawsuit against him can
move forward, as a New York judge rejected the royal’s efforts to dismiss her
civil claim on Wednesday.
Giuffre,
who has alleged that the late financier Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell
sexually abused her, said they forced her into sex with the Duke of York at age
17. She filed suit against the royal on 9 August, citing battery and
intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Prince
Andrew’s legal team had argued in court papers and proceedings that Giuffre’s
2009 settlement with Epstein shielded him from her lawsuit. The settlement,
which was unsealed on 3 January, awarded Giuffre $500,000.
Their
agreement contained a provision that stated: “Second parties and any other
person or entity who could have been included as a potential defendant … from
all, and all manner of, action and actions of Virginia [Giuffre], including
state or federal, cause and causes of action.”
Andrew was
not mentioned by name in this settlement.
In
explaining why he rejected Andrew’s motion to dismiss, Manhattan federal court
judge Lewis Kaplan said it was premature to consider the prince’s efforts to
cast doubt on Giuffre’s accusations.
He pointed
out that this push for dismissal largely relied on the royal’s claims that
Giuffre’s complaint was legally insufficient, which, in turn, were rooted in
Andrew’s discussion of the 2009 agreement.
Kaplain
said: “The law prohibits the court from considering, at this stage of the
proceedings, the defendant’s efforts to cast doubt on the truth of Ms Giuffre’s
allegations, even though his efforts would be permissible at trial.”
He
continued: “In a similar vein and for similar reasons, it is not open to the
court now to decide, as a matter of fact, just what the parties to the release
in the 2009 settlement agreement signed by Ms Giuffre and Jeffrey Epstein
actually meant.
“The
court’s job at this juncture is simply to determine whether there are two or
more reasonable interpretations of that document. If there are, the
determination of the ‘right’ or controlling interpretation must await further
proceedings.”
Kaplan’s
decision deals yet another blow to the embattled British prince, whose
reputation and standing within the royal family has been saddled by his ties to
Epstein and Maxwell.
High-profile
criminal proceedings against Epstein and Maxwell over the past two years have
further damaged his reputation.
Maxwell,
the daughter of the late British press titan Robert Maxwell, was found guilty
of five counts for luring girls as young as 14 into Epstein’s world for him to
sexually abuse.
Epstein, a
convicted sex offender who in addition to Prince Andrew, counted former
presidents Bill Clinton and Donald Trump in his circle, killed himself in a
Manhattan jail about a month after his July 2019 arrest on sex trafficking
charges.
Giuffre has
claimed that Prince was “sweating profusely all over me” at a London nightclub
on a night when they allegedly had a sexual encounter.
Prince
Andrew said in a disastrous BBC interview that Giuffre’s statement about his
perspiration could not be true, claiming: “I have a peculiar medical condition
which is that I don’t sweat or I didn’t sweat at the time.”
Prince
Andrew also maintained that on the evening cited by Giuffre, he went with his
daughter, Beatrice, to a late-afternoon children’s party at a Pizza Express in
Woking. After the party, Prince Andrew claims, he was at home with his children
all night.
As part of
Giuffre’s suit, her legal team has requested documents that would prove whether
or not Prince Andrew can sweat.
Now Prince Andrew is facing trial, the palace must
find a way to ‘de-royal’ him
David
McClure
Whatever the outcome, there is no way back for the
prince – and the family will be keen to limit the damage
Prince
Andrew in Bruges, Belgium, September 2019.
Prince
Andrew in Bruges, Belgium, September 2019. Photograph: John Thys/AFP/Getty
Images
Wed 12 Jan
2022 17.31 GMT
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/12/prince-andrew-facing-trial-palace-royal-family
Well, he’s
surely sweating now. One by one, the options are running out for Prince Andrew.
He has just lost his latest legal battle after Manhattan federal court judge
Lewis Kaplan’s ruling today that the sexual abuse lawsuit against him should
proceed to trial, despite his lawyers advancing a variety of technical
arguments, including that Virginia Giuffre no longer lives in the US, that she
agreed in a 2009 deal not to pursue claims against certain other people, and
that the court summons had not been properly served. He now faces a long trial
that is likely to cause considerable reputational damage to the royal family in
a year when everyone was supposed to be celebrating the Queen’s platinum
jubilee.
One
possibility left to him is settling with Giuffre out of court. After all, this
is what happens in the vast majority of civil litigations in the US,
particularly after the attrition of a drawn-out court case begins to bite. But
such an option could hit the cash-strapped prince hard in the pocket, given
reports that he is trying to sell his £17m Swiss chalet to raise funds just to
pay for his legal bills; this is after reports from the palace that the Queen
would not bail him out financially. Since Giuffre had already received $500,000
in a legal settlement with Epstein, any settlement could run into the millions
of dollars (some reports have put it as high as $5m). If that happened, despite
palace denials, the Queen would probably have to intercede with help, just as
she did when Charles was faced with a multimillion-pound divorce bill from
Diana in 1995.
Whichever
way you look at it, Andrew is now a major liability for the royal family and
the palace must wish he would just retire to his Royal Lodge home and lead a
life of quiet anonymity. Part of the problem, as we discovered with the sudden
departure of Prince Harry from the royal hearth, is that there is no clear
process of “de-royalling” a royal. Despite his escape to California, Harry was
allowed to keep a few of his royal connections in case he ever had a change of
heart. The situation of his Uncle Andrew is obviously much more serious and
more difficult to decouple.
Today’s
ruling represents a victory for Giuffre’s team and, from her point of view, a
positive step. But even in the best-case scenario for Andrew, if the legal
process went to a full trial and he successfully defended himself, the
reputational damage to him and the royal family would still be done. The fact
that he had numbered among his friends two people who were convicted sex
criminals would tarnish his name for ever. There is no way back for Andrew.
Whatever the difficulties, the palace may have to find some way to “de-royal”
him – he is for all intents and purposes an ex-royal and faces a lot of sweating
in the year to come.
David
McClure is the author of The Queen’s True Worth
Prince Andrew: the lengthy and embarrassing legal
ordeal ahead
The lawsuit brought by Virginia Giuffre in Manhattan
is likely to go to trial by jury, US legal experts say
Victoria
Bekiempis in New York
Thu 13 Jan
2022 06.00 GMT
When a
Manhattan judge rejected Prince Andrew’s efforts to dismiss Virginia Giuffre’s
sexual abuse lawsuit against him on Wednesday, it marked a victory for his
longtime accuser.
Judge Lewis
Kaplan’s ruling also means that the embattled royal will remain embroiled in
lengthy – and embarrassing – legal proceedings for the foreseeable future.
“This is a
huge development because it clears probably the biggest legal hurdle Virginia
Giuffre and her team had to get her case to a jury,” said Neama Rahmani, a
former federal prosecutor and co-founder of West Coast Trial Lawyers.
Giuffre,
now 38, has long alleged that she was coerced into sex with the Duke of York at
the age of 17 by two of his associates – the disgraced American financier
Jeffrey Epstein and British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell. Andrew’s lawyers did
not immediately respond to a request for comment on Kaplan’s decision.
Epstein, a
convicted sex offender, killed himself in a New York jail in summer 2019
pending trial on sex-trafficking charges. Maxwell was found guilty on 29
December of sex-trafficking and related charges for bringing teen girls to
Epstein.
Giuffre
first alleged in legal papers filed in 2015 that she was forced to have sex
with the prince in Epstein’s New York mansion, on his private island in the US
Virgin Islands, and at Maxwell’s London home.
Giuffre
filed the civil suit against the prince in Manhattan federal court in August of
last year, also accusing him of battery and intentionally inflicting emotional
distress.
Andrew
denies the allegations. His legal team asked Kaplan to throw out Giuffre’s suit
on several grounds.
His lawyers
contended that a 2009 settlement between Giuffre and Epstein shielded him from
her lawsuit. They pointed to a clause that released “second parties and any
other person or entity who could have been included as a potential defendant …
from all, and all manner of, action and actions of Virginia [Giuffre],
including state or federal, cause and causes of action.” Andrew was not named
in this settlement.
Andrew also
argued that Giuffre’s claims were too vague, meaning that he wouldn’t be able
to adequately defend himself against the allegations. Kaplan rejected the
vagary-based claim and said it would be premature for him to decide on what,
exactly, the 2009 settlement meant for Andrew.
“Judge
Kaplan said it’s a question of fact, and questions of fact go to the jury,”
Rahmani said. “If it were clear that the settlement agreement covered the
prince, he could have dismissed the case, but he chose not to. He said the
intent of the settlement agreement is something that juries would have to
decide.”
Rahmani
pointed out that “the vast majority of civil lawsuits settle for a number of
reasons”.
Victims
might not want to testify in public about sexual abuse. Defendants, meanwhile,
don’t want to face judgement should juries find in favor of accusers – nor the
continued onslaught of bad press that can increase with a public trial.
However,
Rahmani believes this is the rare civil case that is more likely to go before a
jury than settle. Giuffre previously settled “for what I would say is an
insignificant amount – a nominal amount, pennies on the dollar” for a sexual
abuse claim against mega-millionaire Epstein.
And, unlike
many others, Giuffre has openly discussed her trauma. She did not testify at
Maxwell’s trial, so “this is her one chance to tell her story in a very public
way”, Rahmani said.
The prince
might also be opposed to settlement for his own reasons. “Prince Andrew has
denied that this ever happened, so if he enters into any settlement – even if
there’s no admission of liability, even if he tries to keep it confidential,
even if it’s not for legal reasons – for PR, reasons, I think this case is
going to move forward,” Rahmani said.
“There’s
just a number of factors that make this a very unique civil case, which is why,
I think, much, much, much more likely to go to trial than your other civil
cases.”
Andrew can
fight Kaplan’s ruling, either by asking the judge to reconsider, or asking an
appeals court to review the decision, though the odds are not in his favor.
“An appeal
will be very difficult,” said longtime defense attorney Julie Rendelman. “It
was made very clear that the issues that were raised by Prince Andrew’s
attorneys are something that are a question of fact, not a question of law and
therefore, something that a jury needs to decide, not the judge.”
“When you
look at the decision that the judge wrote, it covers all the bases in terms of
all the issues raised, and I think that particularly when it comes to a
question of fact for a jury, an appeals court is hard pressed to step on that
decision-making process.”
While some
deadlines are scheduled in the case – including, for example, a 28 July cutoff
for both sides to submit a pre-trial proposal – they should be taken with a
grain of salt. Depositions and production of evidence could spur still more
depositions and production of evidence, spurring extensions of deadlines.
Andrew
contends that on the night Giuffre claims she was forced into sex with him in
London, he had brought his daughter, Beatrice, to a late-afternoon children’s
party at a Pizza Express in Woking, Surrey. The prince insists that he was then
at home with his children all night.
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