Andrew cannot halt lawsuit with residency claim, US judge rules

Virginia Giuffre is suing the royal for allegedly sexually assaulting her when she was a teenager – claims he denies.

The Duke of York (Steve Parsons/PA) (PA Archive)

A judge in the US has denied a motion from lawyers for the Duke of York to halt proceedings in a civil lawsuit against the Queen’s son while an issue of where his accuser lives is dealt with.

Earlier this week Andrew’s lawyers had called for the case against the royal in the US to be stopped because Virginia Giuffre is “actually domiciled in Australia”.

Ms Giuffre is suing Andrew for allegedly sexually assaulting her when she was a teenager.

But Judge Lewis Kaplan, in a ruling in New York dated December 31, denied Andrew’s lawyers’ request, stating that Ms Giuffre’s legal team has previously received “at least one comprehensive request for documents relating to her domicile, to which responses are due, and have been promised, by January 14”.

The judge added that his ruling was being made “without determining the merit, or lack of merit” of an assertion by Ms Giuffre’s team that Andrew’s lawyers’ motion was “a transparent attempt to delay discovery into his own documents and testimony”.

Ms Giuffre claims she was trafficked by disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein to have sex with Andrew, and was pictured with the royal and his friend Ghislaine Maxwell during the period the alleged intercourse took place.

Ms Giuffre has alleged in the past she had sex with Andrew in London and New York when she was aged 17, a minor under US law, and again aged 18 on a private Caribbean island owned by Epstein where an orgy took place.

Andrew has denied all the allegations.

Oral arguments via a video teleconference on the prince’s request to dismiss the case are scheduled for Monday in the US, the Associated Press reported.

Maxwell, 60, was convicted in the US on Wednesday of helping to entice vulnerable teenagers to the properties of Epstein, her former boyfriend, for him to sexually abuse between 1994 and 2004.

She was labelled “dangerous” by the prosecution and faces the rest of her life in jail.

Her friendship with Andrew has seen renewed scrutiny of Ms Giuffre’s civil claim for damages against the duke.

Andrew was photographed, for the first time since Maxwell’s conviction, driving himself in a Range Rover towards Windsor Castle at lunchtime on Friday.