- An American woman now living in Australia launched a lawsuit against Prince Andrew on Monday.
- Her lawyers have admitted they had tried to reach a ‘resolution’ with Prince Andrew’s lawyers prior to filing the suit.
- She says in a court filing, she was compelled by express or implied threats by Epstein and Maxwell.
NEW YORK, New York – A Colorado woman now living in Australia who has long accused the late Jeffrey Epstein of sexual abuse launched a civil lawsuit against Prince Andrew on Monday alleging sexual assault.
Virginia Roberts Giuffre filed the lawsuit in federal court Monday in Manhattan under the Child Victims Act. Giuffre, 38, claims she was 17 when the alleged assaults occurred. Guiffre claims Prince Andrew knew she was 17 at the time, and knew, she, in her words, was a sex trafficking victim.
She says in a court filing, she was compelled by express or implied threats by her employer, Epstein, and Epstein’s associate Ghislaine Maxwell, a British socialite, and daughter of former media magnate, the late Robert Maxwell. Guiffre says she left Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in 2000 to join Epstein’s organization as a masseuse. She says in her suit she feared death or physical injury for herself or someone else if she disobeyed Epstein, Maxwell, and Prince Andrew. Yet in an interview on BBC’s Panorama, which aired in early December 2019, she said: “I knew I had to keep him happy because that’s what Jeffrey and Ghislaine would expect from me.”
Giuffre is not new to U.S. courts. She has filed a number of lawsuits against public figures, including Epstein and Maxwell, settling most of them out of court.
Her lawyers have admitted they had tried to explore alternative dispute resolution approaches with Prince Andrew’s lawyers prior to filing the suit. It was the expiry of a statute of limitations that forced Guiffre’s lawyers to issue a suit.
“In this country no person, whether President or Prince, is above the law, and no person, no matter how powerless or vulnerable, can be deprived of the law’s protection. Twenty years ago Prince Andrew’s wealth, power, position, and connections enabled him to abuse a frightened, vulnerable child with no one there to protect her. It is long past the time for him to be held to account,” Guiffre’s Monday filing said.
“As a direct and proximate result of Prince Andrew’s criminal acts, Plaintiff has in the past and will in the future continue to suffer substantial damages, including extreme emotional distress, humiliation, fear, psychological trauma, loss of dignity and self-esteem, and invasion of her privacy,” the lawsuit asserts.
“Plaintiff respectfully requests judgment against Defendant, awarding compensatory, consequential, exemplary, and punitive damages in an amount to be determined at trial; costs of suit; attorneys’ fees; and such other and further relief as the Court may deem just and proper,” the suit says.
Guiffre’s lawyers have demanded a trial by jury.
“Plaintiff hereby demands a trial by jury on all causes of action asserted within this pleading,” Monday’s filing said.
Well-known lawyer Alan Dershowitz is another person who Guiffre has claimed to have had sex with – seven times.
She initially claimed she was 16 at the time, however employment records indicated she was seventeen.
Guiffre filed suit on 30 December 2015 alleging the assaults which she said took place in the Caribbean and New Mexico, as well as other locations.
Dershowitz vehemently denied the allegations but settled the case in 2016 rather than have his name dragged through the mud.
Then in April 2019, Giuffre filed a defamation suit against Dershowitz, repeating her earlier claims and seeking punitive damages.
Dershowitz, a famous trial lawyer who was on the O.J. Simpson team, and has represented junk bond king Michael Milken, Claus von Bulow, Donald Trump, and Mike Tyson, is a well-known advocate for Israel and is an author of 40 books. As a result of his run-in with Guiffre, he published another book titled ‘Guilt by Association.’
In a review of the book by Glenn C. Altschuler, the Thomas and Dorothy Litwin Professor of American Studies at Cornell University, Dershowitz, Altschuler points out, strenuously denied the Guiffre allegations in the book, asking his readers to “imagine what it feels like to be accused of a terrible crime with which you had absolutely nothing to do with.” He highlighted his dilemma of the accusation of a single person being the only evidence being put forward. He said that despite this, the burden of proof had been thrust on him in the court of public opinion – to “prove a negative and prove it conclusively.”
To refute Giuffre’s claims, Dershowitz drew on a substantial amount of documentary evidence.
Her employment records, he said, proved that she did not meet Epstein until she was 17, giving the lie to her assertion that she had a “Sweet 16 celebration” with Epstein.
Dershowitz cites Secret Service files to demonstrate that Giuffre made up her vivid account of a dinner with former U.S. president Bill Clinton on Little Saint James, a private island in the Virgin Islands that was owned by Epstein.
In his book, Dershowitz provides travel documents (and credit card receipts) that support his claim that he could not have been present on the dates Giuffre specified.
He includes the transcript of a telephone conversation with David Boies, whose firm represented Giuffre, in which Boies promised to tell his client that she either “misidentified somebody or perhaps had somebody intentionally misidentify him for you.” Boies, he implies, subsequently reneged.
Dershowitz also reads into the record the statement attested to by Brad Edward and Paul Cassell, Giuffre’s attorneys when the litigation was settled in 2016, which included her acknowledgment “that the underlying alleged misconduct may have occurred with someone else.”
The #MeToo movement, Dershowitz writes, has “commendably forced into public view the rampant exploitation of vulnerable women by predatory men.” He agrees that victims of sexual abuse should be encouraged to come forward.
Dershowitz maintains, however, that the media, in general, have failed to engage in nuanced reporting that includes a commitment to investigate plausible claims by individuals who assert they have been falsely accused.
He cites stories about him that appear to place an ideological thumb on the scale. A reporter for the Miami Herald, he indicates, omitted from her narrative every piece of evidence that raised doubts about Giuffre’s credibility. A writer for The New Yorker used a discredited website to report that Dershowitz’s first wife jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge to her death. A correspondent for the Daily Beast begged Dershowitz to share exculpatory material with him “to set the record straight,” and then failed to follow up because his editor did not want to undercut “the mantra that women must be believed.”
Lawyers, Dershowitz suggests, should be subject to discipline for filing false allegations without doing due diligence. Courts should level the playing field by revising the so-called deposition privilege and granting reciprocal immunity from defamation to the accused as well as the accuser in statements made in public court filings and depositions. And the media should require all parties to repeat accusations made in court submissions on the record, before disseminating them.
