Duke of York, Prince Andrew, is being sued in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York and has been officially served with the lawsuit.
Virginia Giuffre, 38, is the plaintiff in the suit and accuses Andrew of sexually abusing her on multiple occasions in New York, London, and at Jeffrey Epstein’s private island in the U.S. Virgin Islands between 2000 and 2002, Buzzfeed News reported.
Giuffre says at the time, she was under the age of 18.
The Duke has denied Giuffre’s claims. During a 2019 BBC interview, he attempted to defend himself by saying he never met her. Shortly after that interview, he announced that he was “stepping back” from his royal public duties.
An affidavit filed in court serves as a formal notice of service. It says that a member of the Duke’s security team accepted the notice of the lawsuit at Andrew’s home, Royal Lodge, located on Windsor Castle grounds.
Andrew was formally served on August 27.
According to the affidavit, Cesar Augusto Sepulveda said it took him two days to serve the documents. On the first attempt, he claimed that Andrew’s security team told him that they were told not to accept the service of any court process or “allow anyone attending there for the purpose of serving court process onto the grounds of the property.”
Court documents list Gary Bloxsome, a London-based criminal defense attorney, as the lawyer for the Duke.
ABC News reported that Bloxsome supposedly questioned the legality of the service. He also called the plaintiff’s legal team’s actions “regrettable” in a letter ABC obtained.
“Absent being satisfied of some very good reason to do so, our client is highly unlikely to be prepared to agree to any form of alternative service while the approach to service of these proceedings remains irregular and the viability of the claim remains open to doubt,” Bloxsome reportedly wrote, claiming that the way Giuffre’s legal team served the lawsuit was invalid under British law.
The first pretrial conference is scheduled to take place via telephone on Monday. It’s unknown if the Duke will participate in the conference.
Giuffre’s complaint against Andrew claims that she was “compelled by express or implied threats” by Jeffrey Epstein, his then-girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell, and the Duke to have sex with the Duke.
A picture of 17-year-old Giuffre supported the complaint, then Virginia Roberts, and Andrew, who has his arm around her waist.
The complaint also accuses the Duke of sexually abusing the plaintiff “knowing that she was a sex-trafficking victim being forced to engage in sexual acts with him.”
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