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A notorious sex scandal continues to be a dead weight for Britain's Prince Andrew.
This, as his stratagem for dismissing a lawsuit by an American woman who claimed she was sexually abused by the Duke of York while she was a minor failed.
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U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan adjudged Prince Andrew's bid to dismiss the federal lawsuit brought by an American woman, Virginia Giuffre, rejected in a 46-page report.
Andrew's lawyers put forward an argument last month in an effort to render the lawsuit null and void. Nevertheless, despite an old legal settlement of 500,000 U.S. dollars Giuffre had with financier Jeffrey Epstein, whom she claims set up the encounters, Prince Andrew's request fell on stony ground.
Virginia Giuffre laid bare the reality that Epstein and his convicted confidante, Ghislaine Maxwell, coerced her into sexual encounters with the Prince back in 2001, when she was a minor. Giuffre claimed she was sexually abused by Andrew at Maxwell's place in London, and at Epstein's New York mansion and his estate in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Andrew's attorneys argued the lawsuit is ambiguous, and called her bluff by asking if she had any ulterior motives behind the lawsuit.
The Prince himself, meanwhile, has been brushing aside the allegations, saying in a BBC news interview back in 2019 that sex with Giuffre never happened, and that he has "no recollection" of ever meeting her.
While Giuffre is pleased to see Prince Andrew's request to dismiss the case being refused, Prince Andrew will have to face a civil sexual assault trial before long. An option this lawyer says will not be welcomed by the Duke of York.
MARK STEPHENS, Media lawyer: Andrew's got no good options now. He can't make things better. So, essentially, I think he's either going to have to engage in the trial process or he's going to have to settle, and that may well be his least worst option.
It's yet another scalding quandary for Prince Andrew, who has since admitted fraternising with the late paedophile Jeffrey Epstein was a mistake.
He had come to grief earlier, having been forced to step back from royal duties.
Witnesses subpoenaed will have filed their depositions by mid-July if there's ample evidence suggesting that Prince Andrew did indeed partake in those accused acts.
As the crystal ball remains shrouded, few have a clue as to what the future holds for the Duke of York.
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