Prince Andrew was finally served child sex trafficking lawsuit papers this week, prompting fears among the world’s powerful elite that their crimes could soon be exposed.
In a filing with the U.S. District Court in Manhattan, lawyers for Virginia Giuffre, the child sex slave raped by Prince Andrew and others, said they successfully sent the civil lawsuit to the prince’s Los Angeles-based lawyer Andrew Brettler by email and FedEx.
Under federal rules, the Duke of York has 21 days to respond or could face a default judgment – which would officially label him a child sex offender.
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Prince Andrew has repeatedly denied Giuffre’s claims.
Reuters.com reports: Brettler did not respond to a request for comment. There was no comment from the prince’s London legal team.
Giuffre, 38, accused Andrew of forcing her to have sex when she was underage at the London home of Epstein’s longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell.
She also said Andrew abused her at around the same time in Epstein’s mansion in Manhattan and on Epstein’s private island in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Epstein, a financier and registered sex offender, killed himself in a Manhattan jail in August 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
Giuffre sued under New York’s Child Victims Act, a 2019 law giving survivors of childhood sexual abuse a window to sue their alleged abusers over conduct that occurred many years or decades earlier. The deadline to sue has since passed.
U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who oversees Giuffre’s lawsuit, has urged both sides not to dwell on “technicalities” and instead to focus on the case’s substance.
“I can see a lot of legal fees being spent and time being expended and delay, which ultimately may not be terribly productive for anyone,” Kaplan said at a Sept. 13 hearing.
Last week London’s High Court said it would arrange for Andrew to be served if the parties failed to work out their own arrangement and gave the prince’s lawyers a week to appeal that decision.
A source close to the Duke’s lawyers said it was highly unlikely any challenge would be pursued now.
Maxwell has pleaded not guilty to criminal charges she helped recruit and groom underage girls for Epstein to abuse. Her trial is Nov. 29.
