Prince Andrew urged to challenge Giuffre
Andrew hires top lawyers, including ‘the Rottweiler’, to try to overturn £9.7m deal with his accuser
An American lawyer who was accused of sexual abuse by the woman who sued Prince Andrew has urged the Duke to challenge the legal settlement with her. Alan Dershowitz was accused of sexual assault by Virginia Roberts Giuffre but in November she dropped the claim saying she may have made a mistake in identifying him. Mr Dershowitz said the Duke should try to overturn the settlement, reported to be around £9.7million, and he believed it was a “mistake” not to take the case to trial.
AN AMERICAN lawyer who was accused of sexual abuse by the woman who sued Prince Andrew has urged the Duke to challenge the legal settlement with her.
Alan Dershowitz was accused of sexual assault by Virginia Roberts Giuffre but in November she dropped the claim, saying she may have made a mistake in identifying him.
The Duke is said to believe her credibility has been undermined and has instructed Blair Berk and Andrew Brettler, two leading Hollywood lawyers, to look at potentially overturning the settlement, reported to be around £9.7million, he struck with Ms Giuffre last February.
Mr Dershowitz told The Daily Telegraph Prince Andrew should try to overturn the settlement and he believed it was a “mistake” not to take the case to trial.
“I have never understood why he accepted the settlement,” he said. “There were many, many good defences he could have raised. I’ve thought right from the beginning as soon as the deal was done it was a mistake to do it. He should pursue every legal remedy and the media should investigate thoroughly all of the allegations because this is just the tip of the iceberg.”
He added: “I think that the media ought to do a deep investigation to determine the whole truth.
“Everybody should be interested in the truth coming out, the whole truth about everything, and it’s very important for the media to start digging deeply into all the allegations and do their due diligence on it… That’s what should be reported, not just one side of the story.”
It comes as The Telegraph published a picture of the bath in which the Duke is alleged to have engaged in sexual activity with Ms Giuffre, then a teenage girl.
Two of Ghislaine Maxwell’s acquaintances are seen sitting in the bath, fully clothed, wearing makeshift masks depicting the Duke and Virginia Giuffre in an effort to prove it was too small for the kind of behaviour alleged by Ms Giuffre.
The Duke is thought to be considering a potential return to public duties with a plan to clear his name. He is understood to be confident that Ms Giuffre’s credibility has been severely compromised after she withdrew the allegation against Mr Dershowitz, and that he may be able to win a retraction or even an apology over her claims that he raped and abused her three times when she was 17.
Ms Giuffre is expected to detail the years of sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of Jeffrey Epstein, the late billionaire paedophile, and others in a new book. It comes as a one-year gagging clause, signed by her and the Duke as part of their out-of-court deal, is lifted next month.
Ms Berk has previously been described by unnamed colleagues in the tabloids as being nicknamed “the Rottweiler”. While Ms Berk said she had never known anyone to call her that to her face, she thought the nickname was “fun”.
“I don’t know how the tabloids picked that up or invented it but it was incredibly fun to hear that someone was calling me a dog,” she told a podcast last year.
Her clients have included Harvey Weinstein, the disgraced movie mogul found guilty of rape. She has represented a host of other celebrities including Mel Gibson, Leonardo Dicaprio, Reese Witherspoon and Britney Spears.
Mr Brettler has also represented high profile clients including Armie Hammer and Chris Noth. Asked by Variety last year what he could say about the Duke’s lawsuit, Brettler said: “That case has been resolved – dismissed by the court pursuant to a settlement that the parties reached. It’s over.”
Ms Berk and Mr Brettler recently set up a new boutique law firm in Los Angeles and in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter said clients would benefit from the experience in both civil and criminal law.
“Many of Andrew’s civil litigation clients will fortunately never have any need to walk down and visit my side of the firm, and vice versa, but there are a number of cases where a client can have both potential civil and criminal exposure,” Ms Berk said. “Our experience has been that a client can be really benefited by having attorneys expert in navigating both areas who appreciate how one can really impact the other.”