Monday was the first hearing in Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s lawsuit against Prince Andrew, the Duke of York. Virginia’s lawyer informed the court late last week that the lawsuit had been successfully “served,” because the process server had left the papers with Andrew’s security. Because Andrew had been actively hiding away, trying to avoid being served in person. Over the weekend, we also heard some news about how Andrew was hiring a “legal dream team,” a team which we can safely assume is being paid for by Queen Elizabeth II. As for Monday’s hearing, Andrew’s lawyer made a motion challenging the jurisdiction and… something.
A new attorney for Prince Andrew of Britain on Monday said he will challenge a lawsuit against him by one of Jeffrey Epstein’s many accusers on the grounds of jurisdiction and an argument the court action has not been legally served on the prince.
The lawyer, Andrew Brettler of Los Angeles, flagged his intention to make those arguments in a document filed hours before a hearing in New York for the suit filed last month by Virginia Giuffre. No other lawyer had previously filed an appearance on Prince Andrew’s behalf, much less responded in a court filing to Giuffre’s lawsuit.
Giuffre claims the Duke of York sexually abused her two decades ago in New York, London and in the U.S. Virgin Islands when she was underage, and in the clutches of the prince’s friend Epstein and Epstein’s accused procurer Ghislaine Maxwell.
Giuffre “was regularly abused by Epstein and was lent out by Epstein to other powerful men for sexual purposes,” her suit alleges.
My degree from Dick Wolf University means nothing, because I don’t understand any part of the argument that Andrew wasn’t properly served. Especially since his lawyer is already filing motions? Andrew knows about the lawsuit. His lawyers have been working on it for weeks. The judge also seemed skeptical about Andrew’s legal argument, apparently.
Now, as for the jurisdictional issue… Virginia’s lawsuit claims (and I believe her) that she was sexually abused by a British national in New York, London and the US Virgin Islands. My guess is that Virginia has jurisdictional standing because some of the abuse happened in America, and Andrew’s abuse was part of a larger criminal enterprise led by Jeffrey Epstein (an American).
Apparently, Andrew is “extremely frustrated” by the legal advice he’s getting, but for now, he’s choosing to keep his mouth shut and do what the lawyers tell him to do. Did they tell him to hide out in Balmoral?
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
This sort of thing shouldn’t be allowed.
How do you even serve a guy who’s surrounded by security guards 24/7 and doesn’t pick up his own mail? We have to create a legal possibility for these people to be served by proxy.
He truly is vile and loathsome. Regardless of the outcome of this court case, his friendship with an already convicted paedophile and trafficker was absolutely disgusting. He should be thoroughly ashamed of himself and this is a stain that will never be washed away.
I agree, I don’t understand how this is allowed. He can literally hide out in a castle surrounded by walls and gates and armed security. Just because one has those capabilities and means does not make them above any sort of law. I didn’t think I could be any more disgusted with him, but wow, I can.
British tax payer funded police protection..
After this with the police being “ordered” to obstruct a legal notice I have no faith in the metropolitan police or British government officials. It is disgusting and they should all be fired.
Attorneys accept service on behalf of their clients all the time. I am apparently way too invested in this case and I looked at the exhibits Boies filed in his status report, which contained all the documentation showing the various methods of service he employed (lots of Fedex packages, lots of emails to what seems like every firm that Andrew has ever been known to use). In this particular case, Andrew has/had not authorized anyone to accept service on his behalf. All the law firms that Boies contacted replied with “we are not authorized to accept service.” Deliberate, on Andrew’s part. And stupid.
Nanny, I agree w/ you about his being surrounded by a lot of security people, etc. Plus, when he’s actively evading service AND he orders his security and underlings not to accept anything on his behalf. Not to mention, using the informal diplomatic protection of his mummy/family’s standing. You name it, he’s using everything at his disposal to take advantage.
Sure, he’s entitled to a good defense, and any legal representation he can afford but come on.
Does he really think hiding makes him look innocent?
Even the crazy dailymail comments section is full of people who think he’s guilty.
Exactly, making a legal argument that you can’t serve me therefore I’m innocent isn’t going to hold any water. I hope he continues to get this great advice!
I get what he’s doing, and that it’s more complicated than this, but it’s still so funny to me that the attorneys he hired *specifically to handle this case* are claiming he’s unaware of it. You can’t make this up.
Is this their best argument? If so, he should just settle with her right now because this is only going to get worse.
No, no, that’s only their first defense. If the La-la-la, I-can’t-hear-you defense doesn’t work, next his “dream team (Ha!)” will move on to the “No Sweat” defense. I hear it’s very effective.
I mean, i don’t have a New York state law degree either, but the fact that his attorneys are making an appearance and not pretending like it is not happening seems like a huge win.
That they were nervous enough, that there was enough law on the side of- you could be on the hook for a default judgment- that they filed motions/exceptions- seems like a big win.
Epstein got away with it for decades, with help of US govt officials.
It is nice to see SOMEONE held accountable for sex trafficking.
I applaud Virginia’s bravery to keep going and I hope they keep her safe. Andrew is a disgrace and it’s nice to know that his money or position is not going to prevent him from being sued in a court of law.
Well we all knew the caping and muddying of the water would start immediately, but it appears the District Judge isn’t having any of it:
U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan didn’t immediately rule on the matter, but told the lawyers whatever bureaucratic hurdles regarding service of the lawsuit would be ultimately resolved and that the case would be litigated.
“I think we are making this a lot more complicated than it really is,” the judge said. “Let’s cut out all the technicalities and get to the substance.”
In other words, cut the bullshit and stop trying to obfuscate the truth. Andrew raped a trafficked teenager, end of.
@Jaded: good! I’m not familiar with that particular judge, but he sounds like he suffers no fools and is not here for Andrew’s BS which is exactly what’s needed right now. Thank you for posting.
@Jaded, Your last sentences is how I read it too. Love it.
What is the goal here… how does this help him in any way to just drag things out pointlessly? Is this the vaunted spirit of William the Conqueror lol.
To get the case thrown on a preliminary issue rather than the substantive issues. It’s not a bad tactic sometimes because things like who has jurisdiction (i.e. the right to hear the case) can be messy and complicated. Not saying that’s the case here, but it can work sometimes.
With this being more than one discreet incident to an identifiable locale, the court won’t toss this, especially not when she can reasonably argue that she sustained her damages in the US.
But Andy has mummy’s money to pay the lawyers so they will be making a lot of these desperate motions.
His best option is to settle early because the longer this gets dragged out the more details will be made public.
@Nic – oh yeah I know the court won’t toss this, but that would be the hope I guess from Andrew’s team.
And I was reading in the one article linked above that the judge is going to order service pursuant to some federal code (I did not click to the code though bc I didnt feel like it LOL) but before the judge can do that Bois has to make a formal request for that order and then andrew’s team has a chance to respond and then there is another hearing scheduled for that order on October 13 – all for an order that the judge basically said he was going to issue so that Andrew can be properly served, when we all know his lawyers have the complaint in front of them as we speak!
but, mummy has deep pockets, so here we are.
They’re doing a delay tactic right now because there’s currently a lot of discovery motion practice going on in Giuffre v. Dershowitz (also in S.D.N.Y. before Judge Loretta Preska, who is the judge presiding over Maxwell’s trial).
If I understand correctly, Dershowitz is trying to have Virginia’s 2009 settlement unsealed to support his defense that Virginia’s claims are invalid because she allegedly “released … claims against persons associated with Jeffrey Epstein.” Andrew’s lawyers are hoping Judge Preska will grant Dershowitz’s motion and that the lawsuit against Andrew will be dismissed.
They can try to claim that Virginia released everyone but if it’s a vague release and doesn’t name Andrew specifically it is not worth anything anyway.
@Nic – lol, they’ll do their damndest though. 😛
LaraW, re Virginia’s document releasing Epstein and his associates from similar claims, wouldn’t that be associates such as Epstein’s companies, charities, foundations, and things of that nature? Not, necessarily Epstein’s friends and acquaintances, like Dershewitz or Andrew. Maybe some lawyers here might explain better.
I think the point is to avoid him having to giving any depositions. So they are throwing the kitchen sink at the case in the hopes that it will never progress to where Virginia’s lawyers can question him under oath. I’m pretty sure that’s how they caught Cosby and Epstein. From depositions in civil suits.
For sure, I just don’t see how it’s better than just doing a quiet settlement. But I’m not a lawyer. Maybe they really think they can win.
At this point, I’m not sure Virginia wants to settle. I think she wants this to go as far as possible through the courts so that the truth is known.
Besides that I’m not sure why his team wouldn’t settle before. Maybe they are afraid it will bring other victims to the forefront, asking for money (in which case, good, we should know how many girls Andrew raped while partying with Epstein), maybe Andrew and the Queen are insisting on no settlement because they don’t think he did anything wrong and that the courts will see it his way. I think no one over there thought Virginia would have the guts to actually file a lawsuit against the queen’s favorite son, but she basically called their bluff and filed suit, so now they are probably in panic mode.
@Emma, I said this in some other post recently, but the sense I get from Virginia is that she doesn’t want to quietly settle, which as someone else already said means Mummy writing a check — she wants Andrew to actually suffer some consequences. I mean, I could be wrong, and they could offer her enough money to go away, but I don’t get the impression she’s doing this for the money. She wants that bastard to pay for what he did to her.
I think if settling quickly and quietly was an option, he probably would have done it already? But I honestly don’t know. Virginia has so much courage…I admire her so much for keeping him scared.
He will lose the jurisdiction argument because Virginia can not only argue that some of the events took place in the US, but also that the damages were sustained in the US since that is where Virginia has resided all her life. His being a British national is irrelevant to this case.
If this was a specific incident like a car accident, then you can pin down the “lex loci delicti” to one location, but this isn’t the case here.
Agreed. And jurisdiction means a lot in this case, because the legal age of consent differs in each country as well.
As far as SDNY jurisdiction is concerned, as long as some part of the federal crime occurred in that jurisdiction, a district can claim jurisdiction. Which is why SDNY prosecutes a lot of financial frauds, a lot of the money aspect of those flow through Wall Street.
@Nic, wasn’t the famous photo of Andrew with his hand around Virginia’s waist (UGH) supposedly taken in Ghislaine’s London apartment?
Sure but that’s not the only incident she refers to. Besides in civil matters the damages sustained by the Plaintiff are one of the factors that a court considers when it determines where a matter is attorned. Virginia has been experiencing her ongoing psychological trauma while living in the US. A short visit to London won’t cancel that. And we also know that Andrew went to Epstein’s place in NY on numerous occasions.
@Nic thanks. And no, I know it wouldn’t make a difference legally speaking, I was just curious. I read someplace that that photo was taken the night he claims he was at Pizza Express in Woking, and he raped Virginia later that night. Idk if that specific claim is true or not, but as you said, it doesn’t matter anyway.
I just hope that Boies has a number of contingency plans, ensuring that no matter what bs his “dream team” pulls, Andrew isn’t able to slither away AGAIN without facing true consequences.
I’m so glad the judge isn’t really here for it. Andrew knows about the lawsuit, his lawyers know about it, maybe he’ll get an extension of time to respond or something but its time to cut the BS and get this thing going.
Only someone under a rock does not know about this lawsuit. The fact that it got to court is victory enough. I noticed that none of the rota rats are saying what this is doing to his dear mama so soon after losing her husband. I suppose they cherry pick whom they lob their crap at.
Right, if Andrew knows nothing about this lawsuit, what’s he been hiding from lately? Also, the other thing the rota rats neglected to mention was the effect of the sexual abuse lawsuit on mummy’s all-important jubilee.
Honestly. This has been dragging on for so long. This is probably why he’s “unhappy” with what his attorneys are telling him— because someone is finally telling him the truth, which must seem pretty harsh after a lifetime of being around sycophants.
He probably thinks another Newsnight-style interview would clear everything up (I’m not even kidding; I think he’s so arrogant that he thinks he just needs a little more time and he’ll be able to convince everyone that this is all a big misunderstanding).
I don’t see how they can make the claim he wasn’t served if they’ve not only acknowledged being aware of what he’s been served with, they’ve filed a motion to dismiss. Her case in the US, even for abuse that occurred outside the US, is that she was not only transported between states within the country for the purposes of letting Andrew (and others) rape her, she was also transported from the US to other countries for the same purpose. I think the trafficking between states and to locations outside the US is what negates the fact she was above the age of consent in the places where the acts took place
Andrew hasn’t filed a motion to dismiss. My best guess is that once Boies files his request, Andrew’s attorneys will file a motion to quash service of summons. Additionally, Virginia’s lawsuit isn’t based on the trafficking– I believe the statute of limitations has run on that one. She’s relying on a very specific NY statute to argue proper jurisdiction and her primary cause of action is sexual battery, as defined in NY.
Didn’t both Cosby and Epstein end up being criminally charged at least in part because of depositions in civil lawsuits? I’m wondering if that’s what’s going on here. He’s trying to avoid having to give any kind of legal testimony that could be used against him for criminal charges.
I could be totally wrong, but it makes a lot more sense than any other reason I can think of for why he’s dragging this out.
I don’t know about a criminal investigation here, but his team absolutely does not want him saying one word under oath.
@Becks I hope more than anything that even if it never goes any farther than this, that at the very least, Andrew will be forced to be deposed.
Although I don’t know what makes us think he would tell the truth — even under oath — because he knows that at the end of the day, he’s going back to his fcking estate to live out his days hunting and golfing. He’d probably lie in a deposition, just as he has all along. It’s not as if he has any respect for the legal process 🙄
I kinda hope he stays in Scotland, because any problems he causes there is going to give ammunition to the Scottish Independence movement.
So, I look at that photograph with Andrew with his arm around Virginia’s waist and Maxwell grinning happily in the background and what I see are two people who, despite engaging in something reprehensible, were perfectly happy to pose for photographs. Then I ask myself I wonder how many more photographs Virginia has? ….
@TheHench I don’t remember where I read this because it was a long time ago, but I’m almost positive Virginia said she asked if she could take a photo with Andrew after she heard he was a prince; I think she knew who the Queen was, so at the time she was excited to meet him. Which is beyond horrifying considering we know what happened next.
I could also *swear* I remember her saying she wanted the photo so she could show her mother that she met a prince? But if her mother was in the picture, I’m not sure how poor Virginia ended up in the situation she did? I will try to find wherever I read it because I don’t want to misstate anything here, but I would swear I recall her saying something about being excited to show her mom she’d met a prince and that’s why the photo ended up even being taken. It was heartbreaking to hear her say it because it was so relatable; that’s how most of us would have felt in her position. It seems like she was still very innocent whenever that picture was taken.
But you make a good point— they somehow gave her or allowed her to get her hands on a copy of that photo — and if they were that lax about photos, there’s a very good chance that there are more floating around out there somewhere. Epstein surely destroyed as many as he could (wasn’t there a suspicious fire at one of his residences, and it was speculated that he destroyed all sorts of records?) but if this one’s out there, you’re right, there definitely might be others. It’s shocking that Ghislaine allowed herself to be photographed with those two, smiling no less. Maybe she’d gotten away with so much that she felt untouchable by then.
And wasn’t that picture taken back in the day when we had to go get film developed? Now I’m curious as to how Virginia managed to get a copy! I’m glad she did, because that horrible image is seared in all of our minds, and if it wasn’t, it might have been a little easier for Andrew to make this all go away.
@Lorelei – I am nodding at your post like one of those toy nodding dogs on the parcel shelf of a car! Yes, so many good points. And I hadn’t even considered the one about the fact that when this photograph was taken you would have to get negatives developed and go and pick them up. I agree with you, I think by this point they were so arrogant and overconfident that they were untouchable that there could be many other photos floating around, Epstein’s fire notwithstanding.
A part of me still thinks that, if the case is not thrown out, the palace will say Andrew was acting as part of a diplomatic mission at the time of the crimes, so he is immune from suit and criminal charges. Maybe the Feds need to wait until the Queen dies to indict him.
We need diplomatic reform in regards to immunity. Raping a sex trafficked minor should never be acceptable to anyone. Shame on the MET police, Britain and the BRF for aiding in this cover up.
Diplomatic immunity applies to politicians or royal family members visiting a country other than their own ONLY when they’re on official business. It appears Andrew’s visits with Epstein and Maxwell were not “business” or “trade” based, they look like he was just partying and that partying involved forcing himself on trafficked teenagers. That may be one way around the “but he was a trade ambassador” bullshit his legal team might try.
Its wise of Andrew to keep his mouth shut and not talk in public. Ideally he would also keep a lower profile by not partying, etc but this is Andrew it’s a miracle in itself he hasn’t yet again talked to the media. His interview really screwed him over, it’s clear he is going to have to b prepped heavily for any other public appearance. His nerves got the best of him and it showed. I think there is a lot at stake here because there are 2 political powers involved. Its really going to be hard to get Andrew to the US. QE is going to fight tooth and nail to save her fav. son.
The NY Post had a blurb about Andrew wanting to “remarry Fergie.” I can see him wanting this since a wife can’t testify against her husband. I hope it does not happen that they remarry.
I would think that maybe it’s so that Fergie can stay in the Royal Lodge if he is forced to go away for a little while (like exiled, not imprisoned). Just gives her more rights as his wife than as his ex. That is helpful to the girls and grandkids too probably.
Eh, spousal privilege only applies to events that occurred and knowledge that was obtained during the period of time that said spouses are actually married. If they remarry tomorrow then everything that Fergie heard or saw or spoke about in regards to Andrew between the finalization of their divorce and the day they legally remarried is fair game in court.
High Court has agreed under Hague Convention to make sure this piece of garbage is served.
Omid Scobie tweeted:
“The UK’s High Court has just accepted a request to notify Prince Andrew about @VRSVirginia Giuffre’s civil case. Her legal team had asked the court to take action under the Hague Service Convention. This means that the Duke will officially be getting served.”