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 Guffre, and requested that the case be tried by a jury.
(You can read: Prince Andrew leaves social networks in the case of sexual abuse)
In an official document presented in the court of the southern district of New York, the Duke of York’s lawyers deny that he sexually abused Giuffre, and deny that he was an accomplice of the late 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.
(Also read: Prince Andrew: the ‘brutal’ strategy of Buckingham Palace)
The judicial process has continued despite the efforts of the legal team of the
Prince Andrew to have the case dismissed, first on the basis of a procedural defect and then on an out-of-court settlement signed by Giuffre and Epstein in 2009, though 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.
EFE
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