Prince Andrew was recently notified at his home near London of the complaint filed in New York by an American who accuses him of sexual abuse with the help of the financier who died in prison Jeffrey Epstein, when she was underage, according to reports. US court documents.
Read also Epstein case: British police will review the charges against Prince Andrew
According to these documents, the complaint was handed to him on August 27, in his absence, at the royal home in Windsor where Queen Elizabeth's second son resides.
According to other documents consulted by AFP, a first procedural hearing, which Prince Andrew is not required to attend, is scheduled for Monday in this embarrassing affair for the British royal family.
Contacted by AFP, the services of Prince Andrew, known as the "
favorite son
" of Elizabeth II, declined to comment.
Sexual assault on a minor
Virginia Giuffre, who had previously publicly accused the Duke of York, filed a complaint on August 9 in federal court in Manhattan.
According to this complaint, the Duke of York is "
one of the powerful men
" to whom she was "
handed over for sexual purposes
" when she was the victim between 2000 and 2002, from the age of 16. , of the vast sex trafficking for which the financier Jeffrey Epstein was charged and imprisoned, before killing himself in a Manhattan prison in the summer of 2019.
Read also Epstein case: Prince Andrew's accuser filed a complaint in New York
Prince Andrew, who had already rejected these allegations, is accused in the complaint of having "
sexually assaulted
" Virginia Giuffre, then a minor, on three occasions: in London at a very close to Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, and in the properties of businessman in New York and the Virgin Islands.
61-year-old Prince Andrew had already "
categorically
" denied such accusations in an interview deemed calamitous to the BBC in November 2019, where he did not express a single regret for his friendship with Epstein or the slightest empathy for his victims . He had in particular expressed doubts about the authenticity of a high-profile photo showing him with Virginia Giuffre and, in the background, Ghislaine Maxwell, who remains in prison and whose trial is due to begin on November 29 in New York. Despite his denials, his association with the American businessman had plunged him into turmoil and forced him to retire from public life.