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Prince Andrew and Virginia Giuffre have reached a settlement in her sex abuse suit against him and will dismiss the case brought in Manhattan federal court.
The sum of the settlement will not be disclosed, according to court papers filed Tuesday. Giuffre and Prince Andrew will file a stipulation to dismiss the case within the next month, according to the court papers, which were filed jointly by both parties.
In an unsigned letter submitted as an attachment to the settlement filing, Andrew said he accepts Giuffre has suffered as an “established victim” of sex abuse.
“Prince Andrew has never intended to malign Ms. Giuffre’s character, and he accepts that she has suffered both as an established victim of abuse and as a result of unfair public attacks,” the letter states.
“It is known that Jeffrey Epstein trafficked countless young girls over many years. Prince Andrew regrets his association with Epstein, and commends the bravery of Ms. Giuffre and other survivors in st anding up for themselves and others,” it adds.
Giuffre claimed in the suit that the embattled royal sexually abused her three times when she was a teen in London, New York and the US Virgin Islands.
Andrew had maintained his innocence.
In her suit, Giuffre claimed she was trafficked to Andrew by Epstein and his cohort Ghislaine Maxwell starting when she was 17 years old.
On one occasion, the suit claims she was forced to have sex with Andrew at Maxwell’s London townhouse.
“During this encounter, Epstein, Maxwell, and Prince Andrew forced Plaintiff, a child, to have sexual intercourse with Prince Andrew against her will,” the suit states.
In each of the three encounters, Giuffre claimed, she “feared death or physical injury to herself” if she did not comply with Maxwell and Epstein’s orders.
In January, a federal judge ruled the case could go to trial after Andrew had filed a motion to dismiss the suit.
Andrew had argued, in part, that a settlement agreement Giuffre inked with Epstein in 2009 barred her from bringing the civil suit against him. The argument was shot down by Judge Lewis Kaplan.
In an interview with the BBC, Giuffre’s attorney, David Boies, said in January that he did not think she would be interested in a strictly financial settlement.
“A purely financial settlement is not anything I think she is interested in,” he said.
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