First modification:
The United States Justice made public a confidential deal signed in 2009 between the late magnate Jeffrey Epstein and the whistleblower Virginia Giuffre for her to withdraw the complaints of sexual abuse when she was a minor. The document refers to “potential defendants”, a category where the son of Queen Elizabeth II would enter. On Tuesday, defense attorneys will ask that the case be dismissed.
This Monday, January 3, there was good news for Prince Andrew regarding the accusations of sexual abuse that point against him. It was after the United States Justice revealed a confidential agreement signed in 2009 between Jeffrey Epstein and the accusing Virginia Giuffre.
The pact consists in that the billionaire paid half a million dollars to the complainant to desist from taking legal action against “potential defendants” for the sexual abuse he suffered when he was a minor. Although the son of Queen Elizabeth II is not explicitly listed, the defense attorneys will rely on that document to request the dismissal of the case against him at an oral hearing scheduled for this Tuesday.
This extrajudicial agreement is part of a case for an alleged plot of sex trafficking of minors for which the deceased tycoon was investigated and which is still currently being reviewed by a New York court.
It establishes that its terms “shall not constitute admission of responsibility or guilt of any party” and that they cannot be used in any court “except to impose what is stipulated in this agreement.”
The clause would provide a shield to Andrés in the accusation that Giuffre made in a New York court last August under the Child Victims Law, where he states that he had carnal relations with him in one of Epstein’s private mansions. The prince’s defense, who insisted on the disclosure of the confidential agreement, hopes that Judge Lewis Kaplan will give validity to what was signed in the pact.
Andrés and his body of lawyers tried repeatedly to annul the lawsuit against him – the last one was due to defects in form – but this seems to be the most solid of the requests they raised. The queen’s son even denied that he knew Giuffre despite the existence of photographs disseminated in the media where he is seen holding her by the waist.
My soul yearned for justice for years and today the jury gave me just that. I will remember this day always.
Having lived with the horrors of Maxwell’s abuse, my heart goes out to the many other girls and young women who suffered at her hands and whose lives she destroyed.
1/2– Virginia Giuffre (@VRSVirginia) December 29, 2021
Virginia Giuffre, 38, an Australian resident, states that she was the victim of a sex trafficking ring committed by financier Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, her right-hand man, and that she suffered abuse from Andrés in London, New York and a Caribbean island when she was 17 years old.
Maxwell was found guilty of sex trafficking last week via criminal trial, in a proceeding closely linked to Giuffre’s.
With Reuters and EFE
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