Andrew faces another legal battle over Epstein claims

PRINCE Andrew faced further woes yesterday after lawyers for an alleged victim of Jeffrey Epstein threatened to serve him with legal papers.

Representatives for Caroline Kaufman say Andrew was visiting Epstein’s home in New York on the night she claims she was raped by the financier in December 2010.

They want the Duke of York to provide a statement as a potential witness to events in the townhouse during his visit, when he was pictured inside the building.

The civil lawsuit does not accuse the duke of any wrongdoing or allege that he was aware of any attack on Ms Kaufman, who was 17 at the time. But her lawyer’s comments come just a week after Andrew, 62, was reported to have lobbied the Queen to return his royal duties and roles.

Spencer Kuvin, who represents Ms Kaufman, now 28, said he wanted Andrew to give a statement about his visit to the New York townhouse. He told the Sunday Mirror: ‘We are looking into serving Prince Andrew. We’d get a subpoena issued here in the States which is brought over to England and localised, then we would have to locate him and have him served.’

In a claim filed at the Manhattan Federal Court against Epstein’s $630million estate, Ms Kaufman said she was invited to his house for a ‘modelling interview’.

However, she claims she was then taken to a massage room where she was allegedly raped by Epstein.

The duke has previously denied he witnessed any wrongdoing by Epstein, who was found dead in his prison cell in 2019 while he was awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges.

In his notorious Newsnight interview in 2019, Prince Andrew claimed he had travelled to the US to cut ties with Epstein, who had been convicted of procuring an underage girl for prostitution two years earlier. The duke said it was wrong of him to have stayed at the house, but denied he had seen young girls there, saying: ‘I never saw them.’

The Queen’s second son was stripped of his official duties earlier this year as he prepared to pay a settlement to Virginia Roberts, who had accused him of sexually abusing her when she was 17.

Prince Andrew had always denied her claims but settled a civil case she brought in the US in February. A spokesman for the Duke declined to comment.