Prince Andrew’s lawyers have insisted that the conviction of his friend Ghislaine Maxwell will not affect the sexual abuse lawsuit he is fighting in a New York court.
The Duke of York’s legal team is currently preparing for a crucial hearing during which they will seek to have the case filed by Virginia Giuffre dismissed.
Ms Giuffre alleges she was made to have sex with Prince Andrew when she was 17 at the behest of Maxwell and the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Andrew, 61, has categorically denied he had any form of sexual contact or relationship with Ms Giuffre, also known as Ms Roberts, and says he has no recollection of ever meeting her.
Maxwell has now been convicted of sex trafficking in a case in which Giuffre was named as a victim.
Legal commentators speculated that the guilty verdict would bolster Giuffre’s suit.
But Andrew’s lawyers reportedly insisted that it would have no impact on the case.
‘They are two separate cases,’ a source for his legal team told The Times.
Andrew’s lawyers argue that the duke is protected from litigation under a sealed settlement agreement Giuffre signed with Epstein which is said to show that she agreed not to pursue legal action against the financier’s associates, the Times reports.
Federal judges in the US have ordered that agreement to be unsealed next Monday – a day before a hearing at which Andrew’s team will seek to have the case thrown out.
Andrew’s lawyers argue that the court in New York cannot hear the case because Ms Giuffre resides in Australia.
But Giuffre’s team say the settlement agreement was irrelevant and Giuffre will be able to establish that she is a resident of the US, as required.
A New York Court will decide on Tuesday if Ms Robert’s civil lawsuit against the duke can proceed to trial.
A number of commentators said the prospects for the duke were ‘bleak’ after Maxwell, a longtime associate of convicted sex offender Epstein, was found guilty on Wednesday of sex-trafficking young girls for the billionaire to abuse.
Nigel Cawthorne, the author of a book about Andrew’s links to the scandal, told Newsweek: ‘The verdict does not help Prince Andrew at all in the court of public opinion.’
He added that the famous photograph of Andrew with his arm around the teenage Giuffre’s waist could now be seen ‘in a whole new light’, adding: ‘Now we have Ghislaine Maxwell, sex trafficker, standing there next to a woman who says she was trafficked, next to Prince Andrew who says he wasn’t there.
‘If Maxwell was acquitted that would have helped him. Things are looking a bit more bleak for him now.’
However, the lawyer for some of Epstein’s victim, Gloria Allred, said it remained a matter of ‘wait and see’ whether the case against Andrew would ever go to trial.
‘I anticipate many legal arguments on behalf of Prince Andrew, having to do with jurisdiction, the power of the court and other such issues — so we will have to wait and see if his case ever gets to trial,’ she told BBC Breakfast.
Andrew himself is said to have remained defiant – despite reportedly being holed up in Windsor Castle alone after his former wife and daughters jetted off for a ski break without him.
A friend of Andrew’s told The Sun: ‘This was Ghislaine Maxwell’s trial, not the Duke’s.
‘Nothing new of any substance has been raised in relation to the Duke.
‘Any mentions have been glancing blows, not body blows.’
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