On Monday, a New York court document revealed a settlement agreement from 2009 between the late American financier Jeffrey Epstein and Virginia Giuffre, who accused him of sexual abuse and trafficking her to the Duke of York and Queen Elizabeth’s second son, Prince Andrew, and others, CNN reported.
Ahead of an oral hearing of the civil suit filed by Giuffre against Andrew on Tuesday, the unsealed document showed that Epstein had paid her $500,000, to drop the case without any admission of liability or fault.
However, Andrew’s name does not appear explicitly in the document as a party, as viewed by CNN. The agreement serves to “remise, release, acquit, satisfy and forever discharge” parties and “any other person or entity who could have been included as a potential defendant” without explicitly naming anyone.
Along with the settlement agreement, two other sealed documents were filed, one titled “Stipulation of Dismissal” and a complaint from Epstein.
Stating it as a “final resolution” of a disputed claim filed in Florida, which intended to avoid litigation but “shall not be construed to be an admission of liability or fault by any party”, the agreement declared that it is not to be used in civil or criminal proceedings against Epstein. The said document has signatures of Giuffre and Epstein on different dates in November 2009, as well.
However, Giuffre’s attorney has issued a statement saying the settlement is “irrelevant” to her claim against Andrew.
In July 2019, Epstein was charged with sex trafficking and exploiting several girls and women. Andrew is said to have been linked to Epstein, who had died by suicide in prison in 2019, while awaiting trial.
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As per the complaint, Giuffre was a victim of Epstein’s sex-trafficking and abuse from 2000 to 2002, from when she was 16. Epstein kept her as a “sex slave” and forced her to have sex with Andrew at the London home of Ghislaine Maxwell, daughter of late media baron Robert Maxwell, she said in her complaint. Ghislaine, who is also named in Giuffre’s suit, was recently convicted by a New York court for trafficking and sexually abusing underage girls.
Giuffre added that Andrew also abused her at Epstein’s mansion on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, and on a private island that Epstein owned in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Andrew, who stepped down from his royal duties in 2019, denied the sexual abuse allegations.
Seeking compensatory and punitive damages, Guiffre sued Andrew under the Child Victims Act, a New York state law that allows child sexual abuse victims to “pursue claims against their abusers, even if the abuse occurred decades earlier.”