Maxwell conviction bodes ill for Prince Andrew

LONDON — Prince Andrew wasn’t on trial in the Ghislaine Maxwell sex trafficking case, but her conviction is bad news for the man who is ninth in line to the British throne.

With the conclusion of the Maxwell case, attention will now turn to a U.S. civil suit in which the plaintiff alleges that Maxwell and longtime boyfriend Jeffrey Epstein took her to London, New York and the U.S. Virgin Islands to have sex with Andrew when she was underage.

Andrew denies the allegations, but Wednesday’s verdict shows that at least one American jury was willing to believe the young women trafficked by Epstein and Maxwell in a criminal case, where the standard of proof is higher than in civil cases.

“To the extent there’s overlap of evidence with respect to Prince Andrew’s case, it certainly doesn’t bode well,” said Bradley Simon, a former U.S. federal prosecutor who now works as a defense attorney in civil cases. “But, as I said, every case hinges on its own specific facts and the judges will always instruct the jury on that.”

Maxwell was convicted Wednesday of sex trafficking and conspiracy charges after a month-long trial in New York.

While U.S. criminal cases must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, civil defendants can be ordered to pay financial damages if they are found responsible based on a preponderance of the evidence.

The verdict is problematic for Andrew because he has long been friends with Maxwell, daughter of the late rags-toriches media tycoon Robert Maxwell. Even after Epstein was charged with sex crimes, Andrew failed to distance himself from her.

The civil suit against Andrew was filed last August by Virginia Giuffre, who says she was 17 when she was flown to London to have sex with Andrew at Maxwell’s house in Belgravia. Other encounters with Andrew occurred at Epstein’s homes in Manhattan and the U.S. Virgin Islands, according to her suit.

Giuffre, who wasn’t part of the criminal case, has described Maxwell as a “Mary Poppins” figure who made young girls feel comfortable as they were lured into Epstein’s web. Andrew met Maxwell while she was studying history at the University of Oxford in the early 1980s. Andrew has in recent years sought to distance himself from Epstein, who killed himself in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.