Prince Andrew has settled the civil sexual assault case brought against him in the U.S. by Virginia Giuffre out of court, documents show.
Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, has repeatedly denied that he sexually assaulted Giuffre on three occasions when she was 17 years old. Documents submitted Tuesday to a U.S. court show that the prince and Giuffre reached a settlement, and that the prince would make a “substantial donation to Ms. Giuffre’s charity,” and “demonstrate his regret for his association” with the late convicted sex offenders Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, according to the BBC. (RELATED: The Queen Cancels Prince Andrew’s Birthday Party Amid Epstein Allegations)
Prince Andrew settles sexual abuse of a trafficked minor lawsuit out of court with a substantial donation to a woman he claims to have never met.
Andrew is reportedly broke so who’s really paying for this? pic.twitter.com/QEWMy9ACn1— Phantom Power (@PhantomPower14) February 15, 2022
The documents also state that Prince Andrew had “never intended to malign Giuffre’s character” and that he recognized she had subsequently suffered “both as an established victim of abuse and as a result of unfair public attacks.”
He repeatedly tried to defend himself against accusations, even taking part in a BBC interview, in which he openly defended his friendship with the serial child sex trafficker, Epstein. In the same interview, he dismissed Giuffre’s description of how they met at a party in 2001 where the prince was “profusely sweating,” by saying “… I didn’t sweat because I had suffered what I would describe as an overdose of adrenaline in the Falklands War when I was shot at and I simply … it was almost impossible for me to sweat.”
Prince Andrew then failed to have the case against him dismissed in January after a New York federal judge ruled that a previous settlement between Giuffre and Epstein would not prevent the suit against him.
Prince Andrew was defending the case as a private citizen, after having his titles removed by his mother, Queen Elizabeth II.