The discussion about whether the British Prince Andrew (61) was officially informed about the lawsuit that was filed against him in the United States has ended. The lawyers of Virginia Giuffre (38), the woman who accuses him of sexual abuse, have been able to subpoena him. This is evident from court documents.
The subpoena was sent to the offices of the Prince’s attorney, Andrew Brettler, who lives in Los Angeles, via email and FedEx postal service. Both copies were received on Monday. The Prince now has 21 days under federal rules to respond; otherwise, he could be sentenced in absentia. Prince Andrew has also been subpoenaed in the United Kingdom.
Meanwhile, Andrew continues to proclaim his innocence, but Giuffre says that as a victim of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, she was forced to have sex with the British Prince three times when she was 17. As a result, she is demanding financial compensation.
Giuffre decided to sue the Prince based on the ‘Child Victims Act’, whereby underage abuse victims can still take legal action against possible perpetrators even after a long time. The judge-appointed Lewis Kaplan urged both parties not to get lost in technical details but to focus on the core of the matter. “A lot of money is being spent on lawyers and seeking postponements, and that is not necessarily productive for both parties.”
This exhortation proved necessary because the Prince made it difficult for the lawyers to reach him. Now the High Court in London has announced that it will cooperate in suing the Prince if the parties cannot reach a better settlement among themselves. The Prince’s team has a week to challenge that decision.
At the start of the Prince’s trial, in early September, during a first telephone hearing in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan, Brettler argued that the case should be dismissed. “This is a baseless, non-viable, potentially illegal lawsuit,” Brettler said. He based that on Giuffre signed a settlement agreement for “claims against persons associated with Jeffrey Epstein.” But, according to Giuffre’s attorney David Boies, the allegations about the earlier settlement are “simply not a fair description of what happened.”
In addition, the subpoena documents were allegedly not adequately delivered to Prince Andrew following British law and the Hague Convention. Giuffre’s team denies that. In recent weeks it has already been said that the Prince is deliberately hiding on the domain in Balmoral, Scotland, to not be able to get the documents and thus escape the trial. Now they were delivered to his lawyers in Los Angeles anyway.