US judge rejects Prince Andrew’s offer to dismiss sexual abuse case Sexual Assault News

The decision clears the way for a lawsuit against the Duke of York, Virginia Giuffre, to continue on its way to a trial that may begin later this year.

A U.S. judge has rejected an offer to dismiss Prince Andrew of the United Kingdom Virginia Giuffre’s case He accused the Duke of York of sexually abusing him at the age of 17 and selling him dead financial Jeffrey Epstein.

In a public hearing on Wednesday, New York Judge Lewis Kaplan said in his ruling that the British king’s motion to dismiss the complaint had been “rejected on all sides”.

Kaplan in Manhattan said it was too early to consider the prince’s efforts to question Giuff’s accusations, that he was beaten and deliberately caused emotional distress, even though he was allowed to do so at trial.

Lawyers for Andrew and Giuffre and Buckingham Palace did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Andrew has denied Giuffre’s allegations More than two decades ago he was forced to have sex at his home in London Former member of Ghislaine Maxwell Epstein, and abused Epstein’s two other properties.

The ruling paves the way for Giuffre’s case against Andrew to continue on the path to a trial that Kaplan said could begin late this year.

Although the prince is not accused of criminal crimes, his ties to Epstein have damaged his reputation and cost him many royal duties.

Lawyers for Prince Andrew said the case was inaccurate and that one had been disqualified He reached an agreement in 2009 With Jeffrey Epstein’s lawyers.

The outcome of a lawsuit came a decade before Epstein was killed in a Manhattan jail while awaiting a sex trafficking trial.

But Kaplan said the “confused” language of the 2009 agreement between Giuffre and Epstein suggests that they had reached “something in the middle” of whether Andrew or other judges in similar positions would be protected from future litigation.

These settlements may restrict the plaintiffs from initiating further litigation, even against third parties.

“We don’t know what went through the minds of the parties, if anything,” Kaplan wrote. “The parties have articulated at least two reasonable interpretations of critical language. The agreement is therefore ambiguous. “