A judge’s ruling against Prince Andrew in a sexual abuse lawsuit Wednesday was bad news for the British royal. But it doesn’t say much about whether his accuser, Virginia Giuffre, will ultimately prevail in her civil suit, or even substantially increase the likelihood the case will wind up before a jury.
NEW YORK — A judge’s ruling against Prince Andrew in a sexual abuse lawsuit Wednesday was bad news for the British royal. But it doesn’t say much about whether his accuser, Virginia Giuffre, will ultimately prevail in her civil suit, or even substantially increase the likelihood the case will wind up before a jury. A look at the ruling and where the case stands: THE RULING Giuffre sued Andrew last year, saying that the American financier Jeffrey Epstein and his companion, Ghislaine Maxwell, arranged sexual encounters with the prince starting when she was 17. U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan’s ruling Wednesday in New York didn’t address the truth of those allegations at all. It dealt with narrow legal challenges raised by Andrew’s lawyers, who said the lawsuit should be dismissed now, at an extremely early stage. They had argued that when Giuffre settled a similar lawsuit against Epstein in 2009 for $500,000, she had signed away her right to sue any other potential defendants.
