Prince Andrew argues Epstein, Giuffre settlement should bar new lawsuit
Global News
The private 2009 legal deal resolved Virginia Giuffre's allegations that Jeffrey Epstein had hired her as a teenager to be a sexual servant at his estate in Palm Beach, Florida.
A woman who says she was sexually trafficked to Britain’s Prince Andrew by Jeffrey Epstein accepted $500,000 in 2009 to settle her lawsuit against the American millionaire and anyone else “who could have been included as a potential defendant,” according to a court record unsealed Monday.
The prince’s lawyers say that language should bar Virginia Giuffre from suing Andrew now, even though he wasn’t a party to the original settlement.
The private 2009 legal deal resolved Giuffre’s allegations that Epstein had hired her as a teenager to be a sexual servant at his estate in Palm Beach, Florida.
Andrew was not named in that lawsuit, but Giuffre had alleged in it that Epstein had flown her around the world for sexual encounters with numerous men “including royalty, politicians, academicians, businessmen and/or professional and personal acquaintances.”
The settlement unsealed Monday also doesn’t mention Andrew, but contains a single paragraph saying it protects anyone “who could have been included as a potential defendant” from being sued by Giuffre.
Attorney Andrew Brettler, representing the prince, has told a Manhattan federal court judge that the agreement should release Andrew “from any purported liability.”
Attorney David Boies, who represents Giuffre, said in a statement Monday that the language about protecting potential defendants in the settlement between his client and Epstein was “irrelevant” to the prince’s lawsuit in part because the paragraph did not mention the prince and he didn’t know about it.
“He could not have been a `potential defendant’ in the settled case against Jeffrey Epstein both because he was not subject to jurisdiction in Florida and because the Florida case involved federal claims to which he was not a part,” Boies said.
