Prince Andrew asks the American justice to reject the complaint "without foundation" of Virginia Giuffre who accuses her of sexual assault when she was a minor.
According to this written request filed on Friday by the Duke of York's lawyer, the plaintiff would seek to profit financially from the case.
Lawyer Andrew Brettler accuses this woman of pursuing the prince "to extract more money" from the allegations against the sulphurous financier Jeffrey Epstein, who died in 2019.
“Most people wouldn't even dream of getting the sums of money Giuffre has made over the years,” writes Andrew Brettler.
Read also Epstein affair: the long fall of Prince Andrew, the favorite son of Queen Elizabeth II
"This is a motivation for Giuffre to continue to bring low-level lawsuits against individuals such as Prince Andrew, whose tainted reputation is only the latest collateral damage from the Epstein scandal," he adds. .
Virginia Giuffre, 38, who has previously publicly accused Queen Elizabeth's second son, filed a lawsuit in August 2021 in federal court in Manhattan.
The case is particularly embarrassing for the British royal family, as Jeffrey Epstein is associated with it.
In her complaint, Virginia Giuffre accuses Prince Andrew of being "one of the powerful men" to whom she was "handed over for sexual purposes" when she was, she claims, the victim between 2000 and 2002 , from the age of 16, of the vast sex trafficking for which Jeffrey Epstein was charged and imprisoned, before killing himself in a Manhattan prison in the summer of 2019.
Prince Andrew, 61, has always denied the charges.
His lawyers are asking the Manhattan court that the complaint be dismissed because, according to them, it does not state "a claim capable of giving rise to redress."
Alternatively, they ask the court to demand that the complainant "provide a more definitive version of her allegations".
The courts are also asked to hold an "oral debate" on these questions.
Since the filing of the complaint, the Duke of York had disputed its notification, before finally acknowledging it.
"Prince Andrew has never assaulted or sexually assaulted Giuffre"
"Virginia Giuffre may well have been sexually abused by Jeffrey Epstein, and nothing can excuse, or fully express, the horror and gravity of Epstein's monstrous behavior against Giuffre, if true" , write the lawyers.
“However, and without diminishing the harm suffered as a result of Epstein's alleged behavior, Prince Andrew never assaulted or sexually assaulted Giuffre.
He unequivocally denies Giuffre's false allegations against him, ”they add.
Lawyers for the prince further claim that Virginia Giuffre "would have received millions of dollars" from an out-of-court settlement dating from 2017 after pursuing Ghislaine Maxwell, a relative of Jeffrey Epstein.
They also say an agreement, signed with Jeffrey Epstein in 2009, prevented him from prosecuting anyone else in connection with his allegations of sexual abuse.
Solicited, a lawyer for Virginia Giuffre did not react immediately.