Duke ‘really can’t hide’ from lawsuit
THE US lawyer leading the civil sex assault case against Prince Andrew says he feels sorry for the Queen.
Powerhouse attorney David Boies, who also warns that the duke “really can’t hide” from the lawsuit, claimed: “I don’t view this as taking on the Royal Family.
“I view this as taking on one particular person who engaged in conduct that I am sure the Royal Family privately disapproves of, as much as anybody else.”
He added: “I sympathise very much with the Queen, in the same sense that I sympathise with any mother whose child ends up in the same kind of trouble Prince Andrew’s had.”
His comments came as Andrew’s US lawyers accepted that he has been properly served with legal papers which allege the Queen’s 61-year-old second son sexually assaulted Virginia Giuffre three times in 2001 when she was 17. Prince Andrew denies all the allegations.
His legal team must now file a formal response to those claims to a civil court in New York by October 29 – or risk potentially forfeiting the entire case, in which Ms Giuffre, now 38, is seeking millions in damages.
Mr Boies has represented the alleged former “sex slave” of Andrew’s late friend Jeffrey Epstein since 2014.
In a no-holds-barred interview with The Times Magazine, he said that it “makes it harder” that the Duke of York is said to be the Queen’s favour
ite son and likened his behaviour to an ostrich with his head in the sand, saying: “He really can’t hide from this.”
Asked if he was rubbing his hands while watching Andrew’s disastrous 2019 BBC Newsnight interview on TV, the veteran lawyer admitted: “Oh yes, obviously – no question about that.
“It was inexplicable to me why his advisers would permit him to do it. The interview simply drew more attention to him and to the fact that he had no credible explanation.
“In addition, it put on display a level of arrogance and lack of remorse that was the opposite of what I would at least think he should have been conveying.” And he added: “It was probably the friendliest interview he could have expected. I think other interviewers might have been considerably harsher with him.”
Though 80, Mr Boies still has a fearsome reputation as a US litigator
who bills wealthy clients as much as $1,850 (about £1,350) an hour and was once greeted in court by reporters humming the theme from Jaws as he prepared to speak.
Andrew has strenuously denied the allegations against him and, during the infamous Newsnight interview, also insisted he has no recollection of meeting Ms Giuffre, formerly Roberts.
Of his own planned tactics in court, Mr Boies said: “Generally, what is the most effective is to just patiently go through the facts.”
He dismissed a claim by Andrew’s lawyers that Ms Giuffre may have signed away her right to sue the duke in a 2009 settlement with Epstein.
Andrew’s team is seeking to have that document unsealed from court records but Mr Boies insisted: “It’s irrelevant. It had to do with Epstein and certain people he did certain things with in Florida.”