Prince Andrew Slams 'Frivolous, Baseless' Lawsuit by Sex Assault Accuser Seeking 'Another Payday'

Virginia Giuffre, one of the most outspoken accusers of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, claims that not only was she a victim of his sex trafficking ring, but was forced into intimate relations with Prince Andrew on three occasions when she was still a minor; she filed a civil lawsuit against the royal in August, seeking "accountability".

Embattled Prince Andrew has made bombshell accusations against the woman who filed a “frivolous” civil lawsuit against him in a sexual assault case in September. The royal claims money-hungry Virginia Guiffre (née Roberts), is “profiting” from the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, according to court documents filed in a US District Court in Manhattan and cited by the Daily Mail.

Furthermore, his legal team, which was acting in line with the court-imposed deadline to respond to Giuffre's suit – accused the alleged Epstein victim of helping the late pedophile’s former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, recruit girls for their sex trafficking ring. In the filing made on 29 October, attorneys for Prince Andrew reiterated he "unequivocally denies Giuffre's false allegations against him."

‘Innuendo Prevailed Over Truth’

Virginia Guiffre, 38, filed a civil lawsuit against the embattled Duke of York in September, alleging she was trafficked out by the late convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein to have sex with the Queen’s son on three occasions when she was 17, and a minor according to US law. The first time was purportedly at the London townhouse of Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's alleged madam, or “pimp”. Maxwell is currently in jail, charged with grooming and sex trafficking girls for the financier. The second time, in early 2001, was supposedly at Epstein's New York mansion, and the third time was on the tycoon's private island in the Caribbean.

British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell appears during her arraignment hearing on a new indictment at Manhattan Federal Court in New York City, New York, U.S. April 23, 2021, in this courtroom sketch.

© REUTERS / JANE ROSENBERG

The formal allegations against the Duke of York are “battery and infliction of emotional distress”. However, the royal’s defence urged a US judge to dismiss the lawsuit on Friday, calling the “baseless” claims no more than an attempt to “achieve another payday.”

The court documents filed by Andrew Brettler, the royal’s lawyer, went on to point out that “for over a decade, Giuffre has profited from her allegations against Epstein and others by selling stories and photographs to the press and entering into secret agreements to resolve her claims against her alleged abusers, including Epstein and his ex-girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell.”

They also pointed to the undisclosed sum that the woman received through a settlement with the Epstein Victims Compensation Fund (EVFF), reportedly worth overall more than $121 million. The court motion cited by the outlet states that “Epstein’s abuse of Giuffre does not justify her public campaign against Prince Andrew.”

Virginia Roberts Giuffre, center, who says she was trafficked by sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, holds a news conference outside a Manhattan court

© AP Photo / Bebeto Matthews

It adds that Guiffre’s “pattern” of filing a series of “frivolous” lawsuits against numerous high-profile individuals shouldn’t be tolerated, as it “continues to irreparably harm many innocent people.” According to Prince Andrew, Guiffre deliberately stirred up a “media frenzy” resulting in the fact that “sensationalism and innuendo prevail over truth.”

‘Money-Hungry Sex Kitten’

The team leading Prince Andrew’s defence also cited a story published in the New York Daily News in 2015 that claimed “Giuffre also was trained to and did, in fact, recruit other young women into Epstein’s sex trafficking ring.”

FILE PHOTO: Audrey Strauss, acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, speaks alongside William F. Sweeney Jr., assistant director-in-charge of the New York Office, at a news conference announcing charges against Ghislaine Maxwell for her alleged role in the sexual exploitation and abuse of minor girls by Jeffrey Epstein in New York City, New York, U.S., July 2, 2020

© REUTERS / Lucas Jackson

A purported ex-lover of the now-married mother-of-three Giuffre claimed he would drive her to Epstein's Palm Beach mansion and she would “have like nine or 10 girls she used to bring to him".

"She never looked like she was being held captive... She and the other girls would walk out of there smiling, with their little bathing suits on, like they had just come from the beach. She’d have like four grand…She was like head b****,” the outlet cited the man as saying.

Furthermore, former friends of Virginia Guiffre are cited as claiming that the woman who has long peddled the notion that the financier was using her as a sex slave was, in fact, a “money-hungry sex kitten” who luxuriated in the lavish lifestyle her situation provided her with.

Attorneys for Prince Andrew urged that the lawsuit filed by Virginia Giuffre be dismissed as violating the terms of a settlement agreement she concluded in 2009 with disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, where she conceded to a "general release" of claims. The secret agreement purportedly releases lawyers, employees, agents and heirs from liability in connection with the Epstein case.

“As part of the settlement, (Virginia) agreed to release Epstein and numerous other individuals and entities from any and all liability arising from their alleged misconduct,” stated Brettler in his court filing.

Last month the attorney similarly claimed the clause “absolves” his client, slamming the lawsuit as “baseless, non-viable and potentially unlawful”. The exact wording of the clause has not been released publicly. Virginia Guiffre’s legal team, who agreed earlier to share the Epstein settlement agreement with the royal’s legal team, insisted it would be “irrelevant to the case” against him.

In another development, Prince Andrew's 2019 Newsnight interview and its “inconsistencies” will reportedly be used in the civil lawsuit against him, according to Guiffre’s lawyer Sigrid McCawley, managing partner at US firm Boies Schiller Flexner, cited by The Telegraph.

McCawley claimed the “shocking” interview was “very helpful” and added that the Duke of York’s ex-wife Sarah Ferguson and daughters Beatrice and Eugenie may be subpoenaed to question his alibi, reported the outlet. Prince Andrew had dismissed all allegations against him in the November 2019 “car crash” BBC interview where he tried to defend his friendship with the late tycoon Jeffrey Epstein.

Congratulations to @maitlis for winning Interviewer of the Year at the @pressgazette's British Journalism Awards 2020 for her interview with Prince Andrew

Watch the full interview 👉 https://t.co/OCI441j94W#Newsnight pic.twitter.com/JmPCpXtsgy

— BBC Newsnight (@BBCNewsnight) December 9, 2020

The Prince denied Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s claims during the interview, saying that he had “no recollection” of ever meeting the woman and suggesting that an existing photo showing the two of them together might have been “doctored”. “I don't know who would have advised him to do that, it was a very wrong move on his part to expose himself in that way,” McCawley is quoted as saying.

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

When responding to his accuser’s claims, Prince Andrew had stated in the BBC interview he could not have had sex with her in 2001 because he was out with his daughter at Pizza Express in Woking. He also claimed that a medical condition he developed after being shot at during the Falklands War left him “unable to sweat” after the then-17 year-old insisted that the two of them had danced together and he had been “sweating profusely”.

Soon after the interview, the disgraced royal was forced to permanently resign from all his public roles. Convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein died in a New York jail cell in 2019 after being charged with multiple child sex offences. His death was officially ruled a suicide.

According to a US court document dated October 25, Judge Lewis A. Kaplan set the deadline of mid-July of next year for the submission of all evidence in the current civil sex assault case, including a potential deposition from Prince Andrew.