The British royal family will have to think of something other than the holidays this August. The Epstein affair indeed comes once again to catch up with the second son of the Queen of England. The American who accuses Prince Andrew of sexual abuse under the influence of financier Jeffrey Epstein when she was a minor filed a complaint against him on Monday in New York, she said with her lawyer.
The complaint claims that the Duke of York 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. years, of the vast sex trafficking for which the financier Jeffrey Epstein was charged and imprisoned, before killing himself in a Manhattan prison in the summer of 2019. Prince Andrew is accused in the complaint of having “sexually assaulted Virginia Giuffre, then a minor, three times: in London with a very close to Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, and in the properties of the businessman in New York and in the Virgin Islands.
A complaint to set an example
“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. The lawsuit was filed in Manhattan federal court, under a New York State Child Victims Act, which gives a one-year time limit to sue for sexual abuse, with no statute of limitations. This law, which entered into force in August 2019, still leaves a few days for potential victims to act.
Now 61, Prince Andrew had “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 the complainant and, in the background, Ghislaine Maxwell, who remains imprisoned in this case. Despite his denials, his association with the American businessman had plunged him into turmoil and forced him to retire from public life.