Prince Andrew: Judge dismisses sex claims
A JUDGE ordered allegations that Prince Andrew slept with an underage teenage sex slave to be struck from the court record yesterday.
US District Judge Kenneth Marra gave a huge boost to the Duke of York in his efforts to clear his name.
He ruled that Virginia Roberts – who says she was forced to sleep with Andrew aged 17 by his billionaire friend Jeffrey Epstein – cannot join a lawsuit seeking to reopen sexual abuse claims.
Ms Roberts, now 31, and another woman wanted to join a lawsuit challenging a plea deal under which Epstein served a 13- month jail sentence for soliciting an underage girl for prostitution but escaped more serious charges.
The lawsuit was filed in 2008 by two other women, who complained that federal prosecutors improperly concealed the plea deal and violated their rights as victims.
If the case is reopened, Epstein, 62, a former hedge fund manager, could face further charges. That would draw Andrew further into the scandal and the US government could be forced to pay the women damages.
But in the South Florida district court yesterday Judge Marra rejected the attempt by Ms Roberts and the other woman to have their names added to the case.
He also ruled that the lurid claims against Andrew, 55, were not central to the case and there was no need to hear them.
“At this juncture in the proceedings, these lurid details are unnecessary,” the judge wrote in an order referring to the women as Jane Does, a term intended to preserve their anonymity.
“The factual details regarding with whom and where the Jane Does engaged in sexual activities are immaterial and impertinent to this central claim,” he ruled.
“These unnecessary details shall be stricken.”
Andrew, who was accused of sleeping with Ms Roberts three times in London, New York, and the US Virgin Islands, has vehemently denied the allegations.
Buckingham Palace did not immediately respond last night to the new judgment.
The two women could yet appeal and the judge made no ruling about the truth of Ms Roberts’ claims.
He suggested she could still be called to give evidence as a witness in the other women’s court action when it goes to trial.
Controversy over Andrew’s friendship with Epstein, a convicted paedophile alleged to have arranged girls for many of his friends, forced him to quit his role as a UK trade envoy in July 2011.
He continues to undertake official royal engagements, although the scandal has severely damaged his reputation.