Duke’s accuser ends sex claim against lawyer

PRINCE Andrew’s accuser admitted yesterday she ‘may have made a mistake’ by claiming she was forced to have sex with a top US lawyer.

Virginia Giuffre said she was ‘very young’ and was in a ‘very stressful and traumatic environment’ with paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, which led her to wrongly identify Alan Dershowitz.

Yesterday she ended the defamation case she rought against Mr Dershowitz in 2019 with neither making a settlement.

It comes months after she settled a civil claim with the Duke of York for a reported £10.4million.

She said she was forced to have sex with Andrew three times at Epstein’s bidding when she was 17. The duke has always vehemently denied her claims.

Mr Dershowitz was among other high-profile men that Mrs Giuffre – who was then known as Virginia Roberts – claimed she was ‘loaned out’ to by Epstein.

She sued the 84-year-old Harvard law professor for defamation in a New York court in 2019 for calling her a liar about her claims.

Mr Dershowitz has represented OJ Simpson and, as Epstein’s lawyer negoti ated a sweetheart plea deal to mitigate his sentencing. Mrs Giuffre, 39, who lives in Australia, said: ‘I have long believed I was trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein to Alan Dershowitz.

‘ However, I was very young at the time, it was a very stressful and traumatic environment, and Mr Dershowitz has from the beginning consistently denied these allegations. I now recognise I may have made a mistake in identifying Mr Dershowitz. This litigation has been very stressful. It is time to bring it to an end.’

The case was due to go to trial next year – the first time Mrs Giuffre would have been questioned in court about any of her claims.

Mr Dershowitz said: ‘As I have said from the beginning, I never had sex with Ms Giuffre. I have nevertheless come to believe that at the time she accused me she believed what she said.’

He added that she was ‘to be commended for her courage in stating publicly that she may have been mistaken about me’, and said: ‘ She has suffered much at the hands of Jeffrey Epstein, and I commend her work combatting the evil of sex-trafficking.’

He added her claims were a ‘terrible mistake’, but now he wanted to ‘wish her well’. A spokesman for Andrew declined to comment.

‘She suffered very much’