The prince andrew of England formally rejected on Wednesday the accusations of sexual abuse of a minor made against him in a New York court by the American-Australian Virginia Giuffre, and requested that the case be tried by a jury.
In an official document filed in New York’s Southern District Court, the Duke of York’s attorneys deny that he sexually abused Giuffre, and they reject that he was an accomplice of the deceased Jeffrey Epstein, the businessman accused of sexual trafficking of minors.
In the text, however, he does admit that he met Epstein “in or around 1999”, and expressly requests that “all causes” of the case be tried by a jury.
This is the last legal action of the son of Isabel II after he was formally accused by Giuffre of sexually abusing her when she was 17 years old in a civil lawsuit filed in a New York court.
The judicial process has gone ahead despite efforts by Prince Andrew’s legal team to have the case dismissed, first on the basis of a formal defect and then on an out-of-court settlement signed by Giuffre and Epstein in 2009, although Judge Lewis Kaplan has rejected both attempts.
Giuffre maintains that she came to the prince as one of the victims of the sex trafficking plot allegedly organized by the late financier Epstein and his right-hand man, Ghislaine Maxwell, recently found guilty in a parallel trial and awaiting sentencing.
The Duke of York, meanwhile, has always denied the accusations and has said he does not know Giuffre, despite the fact that the media have repeatedly released an old photograph in which he appears holding her by the waist with Maxwell in the background, while everyone they look at the camera.