Judge Lewis Kaplan has ruled: the complaint for "sexual assault" on a minor filed by Virginia Giuffre against Prince Andrew is admissible.
The appeal brought by Elizabeth II's second son was "dismissed in all respects".
This judicial decision constitutes the last episode of a procedure introduced on the sidelines of the Epstein case, an enigmatic figure of the international jet set accused of sex trafficking of minors and died in prison in 2019 before his trial.
It had been six months since the Duke of York's lawyers had been battling to have the case dismissed.
The American justice decided otherwise and rejected their main argument, which consisted in maintaining that Prince Andrew would be protected by the compensation and exemption agreement concluded in 2009 between Ms Giuffre and Mr Epstein.
This regulation stipulated that the complainant could no longer bring legal proceedings for sex trafficking against "potential defendants" who were members of the entourage of the deceased businessman.
Read also The 58 staggering rules to which Jeffrey Epstein's staff had to comply in his Palm Beach mansion
The rebound is likely to throw a chill in the British royal family, as Queen Elizabeth II prepares to celebrate her seventy years of reign.
Once described as his
'favorite son'
, Prince Andrew was forced to step back in 2019, after a catastrophic interview with the BBC over the Epstein affair.
Denying "categorically" the accusations of the American, he said he had no memory of the young girl.
But numerous photos, including one in which the Duke of York holds the teenager by the waist in 2001, testify to their closeness.
For British public opinion, their publication is the death knell of its credibility.
London Club
The facts go back more than twenty years.
The 38-year-old American says she was assaulted three times by Prince Andrew when she was 17.
She explains having met him in a London club in 2001, through Jeffrey Epstein and his partner Ghislaine Maxwell, daughter of the former British media mogul Robert Maxwell.
The first abuse allegedly took place that evening at Ms Maxwell's apartment on Belgravia Street in London, when the latter asks the teenager to
"do what she did for Jeffrey"
for the Duke of York.
Read also Epstein affair: Prince Andrew could be protected by a $ 500,000 agreement between the financier and his accuser
Now opens a new stage of the procedure: the
discovery process
, a preliminary phase during which the parties will have the opportunity to obtain evidence. The plaintiff's lawyers have already demanded the transmission of a medical certificate proving Prince Andrew cannot sweat, while Ms Giuffre claims otherwise. In his interview with the BBC, the Duke claims to be suffering from a medical disorder making it
"almost impossible to sweat".
The American claims proof of this assertion.
Attacked before a civil court, Prince Andrew does not risk prison.
But he will have to pay, if he is found guilty, heavy damages.
He also risks, in this case, a second sentence: many Britons demand that military honors be withdrawn.
Her trial should be held between September and December 2022. Barely ten days ago, American justice found Ghislaine Maxwell guilty of five of the six charges for which she was being prosecuted.
She faces 65 years in prison.