An announcement that risks causing a stir in Buckingham … A New York judge on Wednesday validated the complaint of an American woman against Prince Andrew for sexual assault in 2001 when she was 17, despite a request for rejection of the second son of the Queen of England.
In his decision, Judge Lewis Kaplan believes that the request for the dismissal of this civil complaint, filed in the summer of 2021 by Virginia Giuffre, one of the victims of the sex crimes of the American financier Jeffrey Epstein, must be “refused in all respects. “.
In connection with the Epstein affair
The prince, 61, has been embarrassed for years by his links with Jeffrey Epstein, who died in prison in 2019, and his former partner Ghislaine Maxwell.
The defense supported the rejection of this complaint on the grounds that Virginia Giuffre had signed in 2009 an agreement with the American financier not to prosecute him, as well as “other potential defendants”. An argument refused by the judge, in his decision dated Tuesday but made public Wednesday.
The prince is not prosecuted in this case and has always vigorously rejected the accusations of Virginia Giuffre. If all of Andrew’s remedies fail, a civil trial could be held “between September and December” 2022, Judge Kaplan said in the fall of 2021.