Sept. 12 (UPI) — Britain’s Prince Andrew has been served a sex abuse lawsuit by American Virginia Giuffre, a court filing indicates.
Giuffre accused Andrew, 61, who is the duke of York and the second son of Queen Elizabeth II, with rape and sexual abuse when she was underage. The civil lawsuit, filed last month, is tied to since disgraced and deceased financier Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged sex ring.
Andrew was served with the suit in Britain on Aug. 27, an affidavit in a court filing Friday said.
Process server Cesar Augusto Sepulveda said in the affidavit he left lawsuit documents with a police officer on duty at the main gates of the Royal Lodge in Windsor, a property occupied by Prince Andrew, who told him they “would be forwarded on to the Legal Team,” USA Today reported.
Sepulveda added that he asked to see Prince Andrew in person, but the police officer told him that was not possible, and the “service” was still in according with civil procedure rules in Britain.
The affidavit also said that Sepulveda tried to serve Prince Andrew the lawsuit the prior day but a police officer told him that “security there had been instructed not to allow anyone,” on the grounds there to serve the prince with the suit or accept service on his behalf.
The lawsuit reiterates allegations Giuffre made public in 2015 that British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, an Epstein confidant and Prince Andrew’s friend, recruited her and other underage girls to be sexually abused by Epstein, and that the pair offered her to Prince Andrew.
Prince Andrew has denied Giuffre’s allegations.
Maxwell is slated to go to trial in Manhattan federal court in November on charges she recruited underage girls to be abused by Epstein, for which she has pleaded not guilty. Maxwell is in a Brooklyn jail where she is being held without bail.
Epstein killed himself in jail in 2019 while he was being held on sex trafficking charges.
