Virginia Roberts Giuffre, an alleged victim of the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, on Monday filed a lawsuit against Prince Andrew in federal court in New York.
She accused the British royal of sexually abusing her at Epstein’s mansion in Manhattan and at other locations in 2001 when she was under the age of 18, according to court records. Prince Andrew has denied having sex with her.
“If she doesn’t do it now, she would be allowing him to escape any accountability for his actions,” Giuffre’s attorney, David Boies, told ABC News, the US news network reported.
He added: “And Virginia is committed to trying to avoid situations where rich and powerful people escape any accountability for their actions.”
The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages. Giuffre accuses Andrew of sexual assault and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
“Twenty years ago, Prince Andrew’s wealth, power, position, and connections enabled him to abuse a frightened, vulnerable child with no one there to protect her. It is long past the time for him to be held to account,” according to the lawsuit.
In late 2019, Prince Andrew told BBC Newsnight that he never had sex with Giuffre, saying: “It didn’t happen.”
He said he has “no recollection” of ever meeting her and told an interviewer there are “a number of things that are wrong” about Giuffre’s account, which alleges the encounter occurred in 2001.
“I can absolutely categorically tell you it never happened,” Andrew said. According to the lawsuit, the prince abused Giuffre on multiple occasions when she was under the age of 18.
It said that on one occasion, the prince sexually abused her in London at the home of Ghislaine Maxwell, when Epstein, Maxwell and Prince Andrew forced her to have sexual intercourse with the prince against her will.
On another occasion, Prince Andrew sexually abused the plaintiff in Epstein’s New York mansion, the lawsuit said.
ABC reported that a spokesperson in Britain for Prince Andrew told the company there would be no comment on the lawsuit.
Monday’s lawsuit was filed shortly before a New York state law expires that allows people alleging they were sexually abused as children to sue despite the potential block that might be imposed by statutes of limitations otherwise, ABC noted.
Giuffre has previously alleged that the late Epstein, who died in August 2019 awaiting trial in New York on federal child sex trafficking offenses, flew her to New York when she was 17 to have sex with Prince Andrew – something that the prince has repeatedly and vehemently denied.
Epstein’s one-time girlfriend and business companion, the British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, is in jail in New York awaiting trial accused of procuring underage girls for Epstein. He had previously been convicted of child sex offenses in Florida and was arrested in New Jersey in July 2019 and brought to New York to face fresh charges. Maxwell has pleaded not guilty.
Giuffre gave the following statement to ABC News: “I am holding Prince Andrew accountable for what he did to me. The powerful and the rich are not exempt from being held responsible for their actions. I hope that other victims will see that it is possible not to live in silence and fear, but one can reclaim her life by speaking out and demanding justice.”
The statement continued: “I did not come to this decision lightly. As a mother and a wife, my family comes first. I know that this action will subject me to further attacks by Prince Andrew and his surrogates. But I knew that if I did not pursue this action, I would be letting them and victims everywhere down.”
Prince Andrew was named in a 2015 court filing by an alleged victim of Epstein, who was not then named but has since come forward to identify herself as Giuffre, in a civil case brought by women who say they were exploited by Epstein, a multimillionaire who was convicted in Florida of soliciting sex with an underage girl after a controversial plea deal with prosecutors.
She claimed she was forced to have sex with Andrew in London, New York and on Epstein’s private Caribbean island.
The allegations have prompted a series of denials on behalf of and by the prince of any impropriety with underage girls, including that he had sex with an underage Giuffre.
Giuffre is now 38 and lives in Australia. Her court filing on Monday was brought under the Child Victims Act, she said, to allege she was trafficked to Prince Andrew and sexually abused by him.
Giuffre said she “feared death or physical injury to herself or another and other repercussions for disobeying” Epstein, Maxwell and the prince because of their “powerful connections, wealth, and authority,” the lawsuit stated, while also adding that Andrew had known her age at the time.