Jeffrey Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre's sexual assault lawsuit against Prince Andrew will go to trial in late 2022, judge says

• Jeffrey Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre has accused Prince Andrew of sexual assault in a lawsuit.
• The judge in the case said Wednesday he expects to set a trial date between September and December 2022.

A sexual assault lawsuit against Britain's Prince Andrew is expected to go to trial sometime in the fall or early winter of 2022, the US judge in the case said during a Wednesday hearing.

Virginia Giuffre, one of the late financier Jeffrey Epstein's accusers, filed a lawsuit against the 61-year-old royal in August, alleging that he sexually assaulted her when she was 17 in New York, London, and the US Virgin Islands. She is seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.

Prince Andrew has denied the allegations, and court documents show his lawyers are seeking to portray Giuffre as someone trying to profit off false accusations.

US District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, of the Southern District of New York, is presiding over the case. In a hearing Wednesday morning, which Insider attended via teleconference, Kaplan said he expected the case to go to trial sometime between September and December 2022.

Kaplan also asked attorneys for both sides how many people they planned to depose in the case, and each side gave a ballpark figure of eight to 12 witnesses. It was unclear whether the Duke of York would be among the people the attorneys would depose.

In an interview last year, the royal claimed that he had no recollection of meeting Giuffre, despite the existence of a photo of the two together. For his part, Andrew previously indicated that he believes the photo may be fake.

Before Andrew became the subject of the Giuffre lawsuit, the FBI had been trying to get him to talk about his relationship with Epstein, but claimed the Duke had been unresponsive. Andrew hit back at that comment in January 2020, saying he never received a request. He still has yet to speak to authorities on the matter.

Andrew has hired Melissa Lerner and Andrew Brad Brettler of Los Angeles-based law firm Lavely & Singer to represent him.

Andrew's legal team filed a motion to dismiss the case last week, arguing that Giuffre's lawsuit violates a settlement agreement with Epstein. At the hearing on Wednesday, attorneys for Giuffre said they planned to respond to that motion by November 29.