‘My accuser is a sex trafficker’: Prince Andrew turns tables
Lawyers paint Virginia Giuffre as alleged criminal who worked to procure underage ‘slutty girls’ for pedophile billionaire Jeffrey Epstein.
Prince Andrew has sought to turn the tables on the woman accusing him of teenage rape by claiming that she was involved in the “wilful recruitment and trafficking of young girls for sexual abuse”.
In a controversial attempt to prove his innocence, lawyers for the Duke of York have painted Virginia Giuffre as an alleged criminal who worked to procure underage “slutty girls” for Jeffrey Epstein, the paedophile billionaire.
They also indicate that by making false allegations against the prince and using up court time, Giuffre is allowing real predators to get away with their crimes.
Andrew’s decision to come out fighting marks a significant change in his legal strategy, but potentially leaves him open to claims of “victim-blaming” from women’s rights groups.
Giuffre, who is also known by her maiden name, Virginia Roberts, has accused the prince in a civil lawsuit in New York of “rape in the first degree” and sexual assault on three occasions when she was 17.
The attacks are alleged to have taken place in 2001 in London, New York and on Epstein’s private Caribbean island, Little St James.
Giuffre, now 38, is seeking unspecified “punitive damages” that could run into millions of pounds.
In a legal response filed late on Friday, Andrew, 61, sought to get the “baseless” claims thrown out of court for multiple reasons.
One of the sections is headed: “Giuffre’s role in Epstein’s criminal enterprise”.
It alleges Giuffre was involved in the procurement of underage girls for Epstein, the American financier who killed himself in 2019 while awaiting trial for child sex offences.
The court papers quote Crystal Figueroa, the sister of one of Giuffre’s ex-boyfriends, who claims she was asked by Andrew’s accuser for help in recruiting minors: “She [Giuffre] would say to me, ‘Do you know any girls who are kind of slutty?’”
The court filing continues: “It is a striking feature of this case that while lurid allegations are made against Prince Andrew by Giuffre, the only party to this claim whose conduct has involved the wilful recruitment and trafficking of young girls for sexual abuse is Giuffre herself, including while she was an adult.”
The prince’s US-based lawyer, Andrew Brettler, suggests Giuffre’s modus operandi may allow genuine paedophiles to escape justice.
“Giuffre’s pattern of filing a series of lawsuits against numerous high-profile individuals should no longer be tolerated, as it continues to irreparably harm many innocent people and diverts already limited judicial resources from the adjudication of meritorious claims asserted against those who have actually perpetrated sexual offences against minors,” the document states.
Giuffre’s lawyer, Sigrid McCawley claimed on Saturday: “If Virginia Giuffre had stood silent in the face of outrageous statements like those Prince Andrew routinely churns out – his motion to dismiss the litigation being no exception – the decades-long sex-trafficking ring his friend Jeffrey Epstein operated and he participated in would have never been exposed.
“On the subject of money, let’s be clear: the only party to this litigation using money to his benefit is Prince Andrew.”
The Times
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