Prince Andrew could have won his Jeffrey Epstein lawsuit if it had gone to trial, says Alan Dershowitz.
The Duke of York settled out of court in 2022 after he was accused of sexually assaulting Virginia Giuffre in a New York civil lawsuit. Her accusations are back in the news after his name was mentioned in unsealed documents relating to Epstein.
Dershowitz, Epstein’s former lawyer, was also accused by Giuffre, but in his case, she was the one who settled, acknowledging in a November 2022 statement: “I now recognize I may have made a mistake in identifying Mr. Dershowitz.”
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He was asked about Prince Andrew’s situation during an appearance on Piers Morgan Uncensored and replied: “Well, even if everything they said about him was true, she was over the age of consent, she bragged to people about how wonderful it was, and to pay millions of dollars for that?
“A jury would never have come back that way. And I think he could have won the case on legal grounds but I suspect that he was concerned about what would happen during a deposition, not about necessarily the person who accused him, but about his whole life because depositions are wide open.
“I think it was a terrible mistake for Prince Andrew to have settled the case. I wish he could reopen it because I don’t think there was jurisdiction in the federal court. I don’t think that there was the statute of limitations was satisfied. There are all kinds of legal issues that he could have won on. But I suspect his mother [Queen Elizabeth II] did not want the embarrassment that would have come out had he sat for a deposition.”
The newly unsealed documents brought back to public attention Giuffre’s allegations of being trafficked to London and told to have sex with Prince Andrew by Epstein and his associate, Ghislaine Maxwell.
Giuffre said she was made to have sex with Andrew twice more, including at Epstein’s house in New York and on his private island, Little St James, in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Andrew settled without admitting liability and denies the allegations. He retired from public life in November 2019 after a disastrous interview with the BBC.
A court filing from Giuffre’s case against Andrew read: “During each of the aforementioned incidents, [Giuffre] was compelled by express or implied threats by Epstein, Maxwell, and/or Prince Andrew to engage in sexual acts with Prince Andrew, and feared death or physical injury to herself or another and other repercussions for disobeying Epstein, Maxwell, and Prince Andrew due to their powerful connections, wealth, and authority.”
Jack Royston is chief royal correspondent for Newsweek, based in London. You can find him on Twitter at @jack_royston and read his stories on Newsweek‘s The Royals Facebook page.
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