Long-secret $500,000 settlement between Epstein and Virginia Roberts is UNSEALED but makes NO mention of Prince Andrew by name: His lawyers argued it would release him from liability
- The 2009 settlement between Jeffrey Epstein and Virginia Giuffre has been released
- Prince Andrew hopes the settlement will lead to the dismissal of Giuffre’s sex assault lawsuit against him
- The document was released ahead of a hearing on Tuesday where a federal judge will rule on whether it can be grounds for dismissal of the case
- The document makes no mention of Andrew by name and does not mention ‘royalty’ as a category as his lawyers had suggested it would
- Instead it appears the Duke is relying on a vague category of ‘other potential defendants’ which he believes includes him
- Giuffre, a 38-year-old mother-of-three, sued Andrew in federal court in New York in July for infliction of emotional distress and battery
- She claims she was forced to have sex with the Duke three times in 2001 at Epstein’s command when she was 17
- Andrew strongly denies her claims and has said she is after ‘another payday at his expense’
The settlement signed by Prince Andrew’s accuser that the Duke hopes will lead to the dismissal of her sex assault lawsuit against him was unsealed today.
Signed in 2009, Virginia Giuffre agreed to be paid $500,000 by Jeffrey Epstein to resolve the sex abuse case against him.
Andrew’s lawyers have claimed the agreement would prevent Giuffre from continuing the battery lawsuit she filed against him in 2020 because it absolved him of liability for future cases.
But while the document makes no mention of Andrew by name, it does stipulate ‘other potential defendants’ are included in the agreement.
According to that agreement: ‘Hereby release, acquit, satisfy, and forever discharge the said Second Parties and any other person or entity who could have been included as a potential defendant (“Other Potential Defendants”) from all, and all manner of, action and actions of Virginia Roberts.’
It appears the Duke is relying on the vague category of ‘other potential defendants’ to include him.
On Tuesday New York federal judge Lewis Kaplan will rule on whether the settlement can be grounds for a dismissal of Giuffre’s case against Andrew.
Giuffre, a 38-year-old mother-of-three, sued Andrew in federal court in New York in July for infliction of emotional distress and battery.
She claims she was forced to have sex with the Duke three times in 2001 at Epstein’s command when she was 17.
Andrew strongly denies her claims and has said she is after ‘another payday at his expense’.
The Duke of York was photographed with his arm around the bare waist of then 17-year-old Virginia Roberts. In the background, Ghislaine Maxwell. Roberts claims she was forced to have sex with the royal three times
Giuffre, a 38-year-old mother-of-three, sued Andrew in federal court in New York in July for infliction of emotional distress and battery
The developments come at a hellish time for the Duke: last week his former close friend Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted of recruiting and trafficking underage girls for Epstein.
She now faces up to 65 years in jail at her sentencing at a later date.
The agreement between Giuffre and Epstein reveals that she accepted $500,000 in order to settle all claims against him.
In the 12-page agreement Giuffre agreed to release Epstein’s ‘agent(s), attorney(s), predecessor(s), successor(s), heir(s), administrator(s), assign(s) and/or employee(s)’.
Giuffre also agreed to release ‘any other person or entity who could have been included as a potential defendant (‘Other Potential Defendants’) from all, and all manner of, action and actions of Virginia Roberts, including State or Federal, cause and causes of action (common law or statutory), suits…and demands whatsoever in law or inequity for compensatory or punitive damages’.
There is no mention of Andrew or a category of people like ‘royalty’ even though it was suggested in the Duke’s response to Giuffre’s lawsuit.
In that document the Duke’s lawyer Andrew Brettler argued that ‘because Prince Andrew falls within the specific categories of individuals who (redacted) in the Epstein Action – i.e., ‘royalty’ the Court must dismiss her claims here in light of the plain language of the Release Agreement’.
Brettler argued that Giuffre dismissed a claim of battery against the lawyer Alan Dershowitz after he raised the same agreement, so she should do the same for the case against Andrew.
Last week the Duke suffered a setback when Judge Kaplan rejected his request to halt the case on the grounds that Giuffre doesn’t live in the US.
Andrew has tried other technical arguments to halt the case and claims that the law that the case was brought under is unconstitutional.
The Duke refused to accept service for weeks until Judge Kaplan asked the British legal authorities to intervene and serve him.
If the lawsuit moves ahead it will go into the discovery phase and Giuffre’s lawyers have already asked for documents that prove Andrew’s bizarre claim in an interview that he doesn’t sweat.
The Duke said this was evidence he didn’t have a sweaty night out dancing at a club in London with Giuffre in 2001 before they had sex as she claims.
The settlement between Jeffrey Epstein and Virginia Giuffre has been released. The document makes no mention of Andrew by name and does not mention ‘royalty’ as a category as his lawyers had suggested it would Instead it appears the Duke is relying on a vague category of ‘other potential defendants’ which seems to believe includes him
Giuffre is seeking unspecified damages, but there is speculation the sum could be in the millions of dollars.
She claims she was trafficked by disgraced financier Epstein to have sex with Andrew when she was aged 17 and a minor under US law.
Buckingham Palace ‘sleepwalked’ into the Prince Andrew crisis and has been paralyzed with indecision over how to handle things, it was claimed.
Senior royal insiders said the duke operated with ‘impunity’ as a member of the Royal Family because staff were ‘too scared’ to stand up to him.
And they say the idea he could still return to public life, despite the swirling controversy around his friendship with pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, must be quashed.
The prince was seen in public Friday for the first time since Maxwell was convicted of multiple counts of child sex trafficking for her boyfriend Epstein, driving himself to Windsor Castle.
In his Newsnight interview he also told interviewer Emily Maitlis that on the date Roberts says they slept together in London, he was at a Pizza Express in Woking. He has been told to prove this too.
Miss Roberts, now Giuffre, claims she slept with Andrew three times in 2001, at a time when she was 17 and under the control of Epstein.
The prince vehemently denies the accusations. But pressure has increased on him this week following Maxwell’s conviction.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a senior former royal adviser stressed that while there was no knowledge of the extent of the duke’s friendship with Epstein and Maxwell to anyone outside of the prince’s private office, the ‘Andrew problem’ was a long-running issue for the royal household in general.
The developments come at a hellish time for the Duke: last week his former close friend Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted of recruiting and trafficking underage girls for Epstein
Prince Andrew came under fire after he was spotted taking a stroll through New York’s Central Park with Epstein following his prison term in 2011
‘Anyone who even dared to offer their professional advice that maybe his way wasn’t the right one was met with a decisive ‘f*** off out of my office’,’ the source said.
The account is backed up by other former royal staff, all of whom claim the prince acted as if he ‘didn’t have to answer to anyone’ and was allowed to ‘go rogue’.
Particularly troublesome, it was said, was Andrew’s role as a roving trade ‘ambassador’, which saw him repeatedly criticized for cozying up to highly controversial world leaders and businessmen.
A former Buckingham Palace staff member recalled how it was an ‘impossible job’ to persuade the prince or his advisers to take any instruction. ‘The duke made clear that the only person he answered to was the Queen,’ they said.
‘He wouldn’t take advice from anyone. [He] acted with total impunity and staff were just too scared to stand up to him as a member of the Royal Family. Her Majesty almost always backed him and he fully exploited that.
‘There’s an element of Buckingham Palace sleepwalking into this whole crisis. Andrew would tell his family that it was all untrue and it would all go away.’
Lawyers for Prince Andrew’s accuser are demanding he hand over any documents which explain why he doesn’t sweat – his alibi for never having met her. He is pictured at a Trump nightclub in 2001
Andrew stepped back from official duties following the Newsnight interview. But the insiders said it was ‘unsatisfactory’ the option of his return to public life remained open. ‘It would be better for all concerned to lance that boil now, once and for all,’ they said.
On Tuesday, Andrew will try again to have the case brought by Miss Roberts thrown out.
But in court papers filed on Friday, her legal team made it clear they would test his Newsnight alibi, when he disputed her claim he was sweating while they danced together in a London nightclub by saying he had a ‘peculiar medical condition’ which made it ‘impossible’ for him to perspire.
Lawyers want the court to order him to hand over proof about his ‘alleged medical condition of anhidrosis’.
And they could ask for his former police bodyguards to testify about the duke’s whereabouts at the time Miss Roberts says they were having sex. Buckingham Palace declined to comment last night.
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