One New York judge rejected the arguments of the Prince Andrew of England, who had asked to file the lawsuit of a woman who accuses him of sexual abuse when he was a minor, so in principle the case will go to trial.
The judge in the case rejected the motion presented by Andrés’ defense, which argued, among other things, that a economic settlement that the plaintiff, Virginia Giuffre, reached in 2009 with the late magnate Jeffrey Epstein, also protected the prince.
The magistrate’s decision, Lewis Kaplan, came after an oral hearing held last week in which the lawyers of Isabel II’s son argued that this pact, for which Giuffre received half a million dollars, shielded Andrés from the courts by covering others “potential defendants” in the alleged plot of sex trafficking of minors led by Epstein.
Kaplan, however, offered on Wednesday a detailed explanation why it considers that the process should go ahead and also rejected other arguments of the defense to try to have the claim filed for formal reasons.
Giuffre, 38, maintains that he was a victim of sex trafficking by financier Epstein and his right-hand man, Ghislaine Maxwell, and that as a result he was abused when he was 17 years old by Prince Andrew in London, New York and on Epstein’s private island in the Caribbean.
The woman filed a civil lawsuit against the British prince last August in New York, taking advantage of the Child Victims Law, and seeks financial compensation.
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