Judge refuses to dismiss Virginia Giuffre's sex abuse lawsuit against Prince Andrew

• A federal judge denied Prince Andrew's attempt to dismiss a lawsuit from Virginia Giuffre.
• Giuffre alleged the Duke of York sexually abused her as part of a sex-trafficking scheme run by Jeffrey Epstein.

A federal judge on Wednesday ruled that Virginia Giuffre's sexual abuse lawsuit against Prince Andrew can proceed, dealing a major blow to the royal family member's legal defense.

US District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan ruled that the Duke of York's motion to dismiss the lawsuit was "denied in all respects," allowing the case to move forward.

"Virginia Giuffre is, of course, pleased that Prince Andrew's motion to dismiss has been denied, and that evidence will now be taken concerning her claims against him," Giuffre's attorney, David Boies, said in a statement to Insider. "She looks forward to a judicial determination of the merits of those claims."

Giuffre filed the lawsuit against Prince Andrew, a former friend of the now-dead pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, in August. She alleged that he sexually abused her on three occasions in the 2000s as part of Epstein's sex-trafficking scheme. Prince Andrew has strenuously denied the allegations.

Giuffre's attorneys have said they want the case to go to trial, but Kaplan's ruling does not mean that she and Prince Andrew cannot reach a settlement before then.

The ruling comes a few days after Carolyn Andriano, another Epstein accuser, told The Daily Mail that Giuffre had sent her contemporaneous text messages after sleeping with Prince Andrew. However, Kaplan explained that his ruling is based on his interpretation of the law and does not evaluate the facts of Giuffre's case.

In the terse, 46-page ruling, the judge struck down each and every argument the Duke of York had made in his motion to dismiss the lawsuit. Prince Andrew's defense made four main arguments: firstly, that a 2009 settlement between Epstein and Giuffre from an earlier lawsuit protected him against further lawsuits from Giuffre, and secondly, that Giuffre hadn't sufficiently alleged any violations of the New York Penal Code.

Defense attorneys also argued that Giuffre's allegations would have been time-barred by the statute of limitations if not for the 2019 New York Child Victims Act, which they labeled "unconstitutional." Their final argument was that Giuffre's allegations in her complaint were not sufficiently detailed.

Kaplan rebuffed all four arguments, taking particular care to explain why he believed the 2009 settlement agreement didn't shield Prince Andrew from liability. The 2009 agreement stated that Giuffre wouldn't bring action against "other potential defendants," but Kaplan said it was not clear that the term referred to Andrew.

The judge wrote that the issue would have to be resolved in further proceedings, ruling that when contract language is unclear, "the ambiguity must be resolved by the trier of fact, ordinarily a trial jury."

Prince Andrew had also argued that he should be considered an "other potential defendant," because Giuffre had previously brought similar claims against the lawyer Alan Dershowitz and later backed off due to the language of the 2009 settlement agreement.

Kaplan wrote that Dershowitz would be covered by the release since he was one of Epstein's attorneys, not an "other potential defendant." But Kaplan also added that his assumption about Dershowitz's status may not be "necessarily correct," and wrote that his confusion demonstrated how the 2009 agreement was "riddled with drafting problems and ambiguities."

The judge also ruled that Giuffre's two central allegations against Andrew — battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress — were indeed sufficient violations to proceed with a lawsuit, and Kaplan scoffed at Andrew's suggestion that the New York Child Victims Act was unconstitutional.

"Defendant is not the first litigant to advance this argument, which has been rejected by every New York state and federal court to have encountered it," Kaplan said. "And it has been rejected repeatedly for good reason."

Finally, Kaplan rejected the argument that Giuffre's allegations were too vague, saying that Prince Andrew would be entitled to further details during the discovery process.

"Ms. Giuffre's complaint is neither 'unintelligible' nor 'vague' nor 'ambiguous,'" Kaplan wrote. "It alleges discrete incidents of sexual abuse in particular circumstances at three identifiable locations. It identifies to whom it attributes that sexual abuse."

Andrew's and Giuffre's attorneys clashed about the same topics in a court hearing last week, where Kaplan similarly shot down many of the points raised by Andrew's attorney, Andrew Brettler. At one point, Kaplan expressed shock when Brettler suggested that Giuffre hadn't adequately described her allegations.

"It was sexual intercourse. Involuntary sexual intercourse. There isn't any debate over what that means — at least since someone else was in the White House," Kaplan said.

Giuffre is the highest-profile Epstein accuser, having fought through litigation for years against Epstein, his former girlfriend and now-convicted accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, and Alan Dershowitz, who she has also accused of sexual misconduct. Unsealed documents and depositions obtained for her lawsuits have shed light on the scope of Epstein's sexual abuse, which spanned from his residences in New York, Florida, London, the US Virgin Islands, and a massive ranch he owned in New Mexico.