Virginia Roberts Giuffre speaks to reporters in New York on Aug. 27, 2019. If a judge allows her case to go forward, Prince Andrew could face damaging testimony from her about his alleged abuse. (Jefferson Siegel/The New York Times)
LONDON — Queen Elizabeth II will mark 70 years on the throne in February, a milestone unmatched by any British sovereign and a chance to turn the page on three years of ceaseless turmoil in the royal family. But a sexual abuse lawsuit unfolding in a New York courtroom could yet spoil her celebration.
On Tuesday, lawyers for the queen’s second son, Prince Andrew, asked a federal judge to throw out a lawsuit by Virginia Roberts Giuffre, in which she says that Andrew, a friend of late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, raped her when she was 17.
It was the latest in a skein of legal maneuvers by the prince’s lawyers to defuse Giuffre’s case. While the judge, Lewis A. Kaplan, did not immediately rule on the motion, leaving Andrew’s legal fate unsettled for now, the hearing dramatized the shadow that the 61-year-old prince still casts over his family.
©2019 New York Times News Service