The case will continue well.
A New York judge on Wednesday upheld the complaint of an American woman against Prince Andrew for sexual assault in 2001 when she was 17, despite a request to reject the second son of the Queen of England.
In his decision, Judge Lewis Kaplan believes that the request for the dismissal of this civil complaint, filed in the summer of 2021 by Virginia Giuffre, one of the victims of the sex crimes of the American financier Jeffrey Epstein, must be "refused in all respects. ".
The prince, 61, has been embarrassed for years by his links with Jeffrey Epstein, who died in prison in 2019, and his former partner Ghislaine Maxwell.
The abuse reportedly took place in New York City, London and on Epstein's private island in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
The prince rejects the accusations
The defense supported the rejection of this complaint on the grounds that Virginia Giuffre had signed in 2009 an agreement with the American financier not to prosecute him, as well as "other potential defendants".
An argument refused by the judge, in his decision dated Tuesday but made public Wednesday, because the agreement would be "too ambiguous" and therefore subject to various interpretations, specifies The New York Post.
The prince is not prosecuted in this case and has always vigorously rejected the accusations of Virginia Giuffre.
If all of Andrew's remedies fail, a civil trial could be held “between September and December” 2022, Judge Kaplan said in the fall of 2021.
Read also Epstein affair: the long fall of Prince Andrew, the favorite son of Queen Elizabeth II
On the other hand, the British justice decided last October not to prosecute Prince Andrew.
In August, London (UK) Police Chief Cressida Dick asked her team to reconsider the case.
“Metropolitan police officers learned of a document released in the context of a US civil action.
This review is complete and we are not taking any further action ”.
