Prince Andrew’s Lawyer Reportedly Served With Sexual Assault Suit Papers
© REUTERS / STEVE PARSONS
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Virginia Roberts Giuffre, an alleged Jeffrey Epstein victim, claims she was forced to have sex with Prince Andrew on three occasions when she was 17, and is currently suing him for battery and infliction of emotional distress. However, the sides have been wrangling over whether the British royal has been properly served with documents in the case.
Prince Andrew has been served with a civil sexual assault lawsuit filed by Virginia Roberts Giuffre, after the relevant legal papers were delivered to his US lawyer, reported The Guardian, citing court records.
The summons and complaint papers were sent by the accuser’s legal team via email on 17 September, and by FedEx to the Duke of York's Los Angeles-based attorney Andrew Brettler on Monday, according to his accuser’s legal team.
The physical papers were left at the front desk of Brettler’s office, Lavely & Singer, according to the FedEx receipt cited in the court filing.
“Pursuant to Judge Kaplan’s September 16, 2021, order granting Plaintiff’s motion for alternate service (attached), I am serving by email the Summons and Complaint in the above-captioned matter on you in your capacity as counsel for the Defendant, Prince Andrew, the Duke of York,” stated the email sent to the disgraced royal’s lawyer.
According to the court filing, papers were also sent “to the designated central authority of the United Kingdom on the court’s behalf”, in other words, the Royal Courts of Justice in London. A spokeswoman for Prince Andrew, 61, was cited as saying the royal, who is reportedly staying at the Queen's Scottish holiday estate, Balmoral,would not be making an official comment regarding the update in the legal case.
'Hide and Seek' Over Notification
The developments follow an earlier dispute over whether Prince Andrew had been properly served with the legal papers in the civil lawsuit filed against him. The legal team of his accuser,Virginia Giuffre (née Roberts) had argued that a copy of the lawsuit had earlier been left with a Metropolitan Police officer on duty at the main gates of the Duke’s home at Royal Lodge, Windsor Great Park, on 27 August at 9.30am.
However, the embattled royal’s lawyers contested whether he has been officially notified. The Duke of York’s lawyer also slammed the lawsuit as “baseless, non-viable and potentially unlawful”. Giuffre's legal team accused the prince of engaging in a "game of hide and seek behind palace walls" to dodge the legal papers.
In this Aug. 27, 2019, photo, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who says she was trafficked by sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, holds a news conference outside a Manhattan court where sexual assault claimants invited by a judge addressed a hearing following Epstein's jailhouse death in New York
© AP Photo / Bebeto Matthews
Virginia Roberts Giuffre, 38, has filed a civil complaint against Prince Andrew in the United States, following sworn testimony that she was several times trafficked out by the late convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein to have sex with him in 2001 while she was a minor. Now a married mother-of-three living in Australia, Giuffre is accusing the royal of battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress over alleged misconduct at the London home of Epstein’s alleged “pimp” Ghislaine Maxwell, in New York, and in the US Virgin Islands on Epstein’s private island, Little Saint James.
In this Thursday, July 2, 2020, file photo, Audrey Strauss, Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, gestures as she speaks during a news conference to announce charges against Ghislaine Maxwell for her alleged role in the sexual exploitation and abuse of multiple minor girls by Jeffrey Epstein, in New York
© AP Photo / John Minchillo
Jeffrey Epstein’s ex-lover Maxwell is currently in a Brooklyn jail awaiting a November trial on grooming and sex-trafficking charges. Epstein died in a New York jail cell in 2019 after being charged with multiple child sex offences, with his death officially ruled a suicide. Prince Andrew has dismissed all allegations against him.
Prince Andrew, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, and Ghislaine Maxwell. This photo was included in an affidavit in which Giuffre alleged that she was directed to have sex with Andrew
© Photo : Florida Southern District Court
In a November 2019 “car crash” BBC interview he ventured to defend his friendship with the late tycoon Jeffrey Epstein.
Prince Andrew says he has 'no recollection' of ever meeting one of the women accusing him of sexual impropriety.
— ITV News (@itvnews) November 15, 2019
The duke made the claims in a BBC interview about his friendship with convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
Read more: https://t.co/38aG3fUaRG pic.twitter.com/3oucZr0YkI
While denying Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s claims, the royal had insisted he had “no recollection” of ever meeting the woman. In the wake of the clumsy interview, however, Prince Andrew was compelled to retire from royal duties.
