Prince Andrew soon in civil trial in New York

A combination of photos created on January 12, 2022, showing Prince Andrew in Windsor on April 11, 2021 and Virginia Giuffre in New York on October 22, 2019

–

–
–

–
–

–
–

–
–
–
–
–

In a substantiated document made public on Wednesday by his lawyers and the federal court in Manhattan, “Prince Andrew hereby demands a trial by jury on all the grounds invoked in the civil complaint” filed in August 2021 in New York by Virginia Giuffre, 38, who accuses the prince of sexually assaulting her three times in 2001.

In the entourage of Andrew in London, it is confirmed that “it simply means that the case will be settled in court”.

After multiple attempts in recent months to block and have Ms. Giuffre’s complaint dismissed, Prince Andrew, 61, who lives deprived of any official role and stripped of all his military titles, therefore seems to have resolved to be tried in civil court in New York in a trial that will inevitably have a huge impact on the British royal family.

Andrew did not

As he has always “categorically” denied them, Prince Andrew disputes Ms. Giuffre’s accusations point by point in the legal document from his lawyers.

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 increasingly likely perspective of a civil trial in New York does not preclude the two parties from reaching an agreement for financial compensation.

The plaintiff’s New York lawyer, David Boies, expressed in a statement sent to AFP on Wednesday evening his “eagerness to confront Prince Andrew, his denials and his attempts to blame Ms Giuffre during of his testimony and during a trial”.

According to the British press, the prince recently settled a dispute over a debt of 6.6 million pounds sterling (nearly 8 million euros), which will allow him to sell a chalet in Switzerland that he had acquired in 2014 , for a sum which would amount to 18 million pounds (21 million euros).

A trial in New York could thus be held at the end of the year.

Civil trial at the end of 2022?

In the fall of 2021, Manhattan Judge Lewis Kaplan, who dismissed the prince’s last appeal on January 12, predicted that a civil trial would take place “between September and December” 2022.

According to New York lawyers, Andrew will first have to give a sworn statement in the office of a lawyer, probably in the United Kingdom, and answer questions from American counsel for the plaintiff.

Her answers will then be submitted as evidence before a jury to decide on financial compensation for the complainant.

Experts say the prince will certainly have to appear at some point or risk being tried in absentia and “unfavorably”.

On the other hand, the civil complaint of Virginia Guiffre cannot be automatically converted into criminal proceedings for sexual crimes. Even if nothing prevents in the future that US federal prosecutors initiate criminal proceedings against Andrew if they believe that he may indeed have committed a crime.

AFP

–