Did you know that Prince Andrew still plans to dispute the authenticity of this ^^ photo? Sources close to Andrew have said for years now that Andrew believes the photo has been manipulated or faked in some way, and he plans to continue arguing that in court during his trial. This is Andrew’s “fat finger defense” – as in, he believes that the fingers in the hand around then-Virginia Roberts’s waist are “too fat” to be his fingers. I hope this comes up during his deposition too, which will apparently be happening much faster than I realized. David Boies (Virginia Giuffre’s lawyer) is already making plans to travel to London to depose Andrew personally:

The drumbeat for settlement in the Giuffre case is growing louder on both sides. This week a source in Andrew’s camp told The Daily Beast they did not wish to “foreclose on the possibility” of settling and now Giuffre’s lawyer David Boies has told the Telegraph: “I think that we would be unlikely to settle in a situation in which somebody just handed over a cheque. So if Prince Andrew maintains ‘I’ve never heard of this person’, ‘I don’t know who she is’, ‘The photographs are fake,’ then I don’t think that we would want to settle on that basis…[but] if you had a settlement that was large enough to be, in effect, a vindication, then it’s something we would obviously look at.”

US civil law­­­­yer Spencer Kuvin told The Sun: “Damages against Andrew could range in excess of £14 million. To punish some­­one worth a fortune you have got to hit them in their pockets and punish them accordingly.”

If the case continues, Andrew can expect to be grilled for as much as two days by master inquisitor David Boies himself. The lawyer tells the Telegraph: “It has been agreed that we will go to London to depose him,” and adds it could last “a day, or probably two.”

Boies says: “I’m going to try to get him to understand that this is not going to be combative. Obviously, I’m going to ask him a lot of questions. And although some of the questions may be uncomfortable, I’m not going to be aggressive or in any way offensive to him. I’m going to be very respectful.”

[From The Daily Beast]

Judging solely from Andrew’s past buffoonery, I tend to believe that Andrew will not realize that he needs to move heaven and earth to settle until it’s much too late. My guess is that Andrew will still be digging in his heels and he’ll sit down for the deposition, thinking that he’ll nail it and all of his answers make Virginia look awful, and then it will all blow up in his face with just a handful of leaks from Boies. Like, I expect Andrew to finally settle just days before the trial begins. If past is prologue, that sounds like his vibe.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid.