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Prince Andrew Denies Allegations Of Sexual Abuse And Demands Jury Trial In New Legal Filing
Through his attorneys, Prince Andrew denied that Jeffrey Epstein had ever "trafficked girls to him," in response to a civil lawsuit filed against him last year by Virginia Giuffre.
Prince Andrew has denied allegations made in a civil lawsuit that he sexually abused Virginia Giuffre and has demanded a jury trial, according to a new legal filing by his attorneys.
“Prince Andrew hereby demands a trial by jury on all causes of action asserted in the complaint,” his attorneys wrote in the 11-page legal filing, which was obtained by The Guardian.
Giuffre filed a federal civil lawsuit in August against the British royal, accusing him of sexually abusing her when she was 17 years old on three separate occasions while she was in the company of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, according to the civil suit obtained by Oxygen.com.
His attorneys, Andrew B. Brettler and Melissa Y. Lerner, strongly denied the allegations in their own legal filing Wednesday.
"Prince Andrew denies that he was a co-conspirator of Epstein or that Epstein trafficked girls to him," stated the filing, which was also obtained by CNN and The New York Post.
Prince Andrew admitted he met Epstein “in or around 1999” and that both Epstein and Maxwell had been at his 40th birthday party in 2000 but denied that he had become a “frequent guest” at Epstein’s various homes, according to the filing.
He also denied being a “close friend” to Maxwell, a British socialite who was convicted last month of sex trafficking after prosecutors said she recruited and groomed underage girls for Epstein to abuse.
As part of the filing, Prince Andrew’s attorneys also laid out 11 defenses against the suit, including “consent” and “statute of limitations,” arguing that the civil suit had been filed too long after the alleged abuse took place.
They also argued that Giuffre’s “alleged causes of action” should be barred “by her own wrongful conduct and the doctrine of unclean hands,” an accusation that Giuffre had acted unethically in connection with the accusations laid out in the civil suit.
His attorneys also reiterated a previous argument that Prince Andrew should be protected from any litigation because of a settlement agreement Giuffre made with Epstein in 2009.
Sigrid McCawley, an attorney representing Giuffre, said in a statement to Oxygen.com that she is anxious to face-off with Prince Andrew’s attorneys in a court room.
“To claim that Virginia Giuffre would have ‘consented’ to this horrific abuse smacks of desperation, and we look forward to putting these matters before a jury in New York,” she said.
Earlier this month, Buckingham Palace announced that the Queen had stripped the Duke of York of his military affiliations and royal charities.
“The Duke of York will continue not to undertake any public duties and is defending this case as a private citizen,” the statement concluded.
The announcement came just one day after U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan refused to dismiss the civil lawsuit against Prince Andrew, according to court documents in the case.
Maxwell, 60, was convicted last month in federal court of five counts related to sex trafficking and abuse.
Epstein took his own life in a Manhattan jail cell in August of 2019 while awaiting trial on his own federal sex trafficking charges.
