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Lawyers ask Prince Andrew to respond under oath about claims of sex with 17-year-old girl Lawyers ask Prince Andrew to respond under oath about claims of sex with 17-year-old girl
(about 4 hours later)
Lawyers acting for the woman who alleges she was forced by a billionaire financier to have sex with Prince Andrew when she was 17 are formally requesting that he respond to her accusations under oath. Lawyers acting for the woman who alleges she was forced by a multimillionaire financier to have sex with Prince Andrew when she was 17 are formally requesting that he respond under oath to her accusations.
A letter addressed to Andrew at Buckingham Palace asking him to take part in a two-hour interview was filed with a court in Florida on Wednesday. Details of the request, contained in a letter addressed to Andrew at Buckingham Palace asking him to take part in a two-hour interview, were contained in a new legal submission filed by the woman, Virginia Roberts, in a Florida court on Wednesday.
It features a photograph of Andrew with his arm around Virginia Roberts, referred to in court as Jane Doe No 3, who last month alleged that she was made to have sexual relations with Andrew by his friend Jeffrey Epstein, a former hedge fund tycoon and convicted sex offender. The court bundle also contains a sworn affidavit from Roberts, providing new details about the sexual encounters she alleges she had with Andrew on three separate occasions beginning when she was 17 and working for Jeffrey Epstein, a former hedge fund boss since convicted for soliciting sex with a minor.
“This letter is a formal request … to interview you, under oath, regarding interactions that you had with Jane Doe No 3 beginning in approximately early 2001,” the letter states. Roberts alleges she was paid $15,000 by Epstein after she claims she first slept with Andrew partly “to keep my mouth shut about ‘working’ with the Prince”. She also claims she was involved in an “orgy” in the US Virgin Islands with the duke, Epstein, and eight other girls, who she said all appeared to be under 18.
The letter was part of a legal submission from Roberts that contains new details about her alleged encounters with Andrew that she said occurred when she was 17.
In a sworn affidavit to the court, contained in the same legal bundle, Roberts also states she has asked her lawyers to “pursue all reasonable and legitimate means” to have criminal charges brought against “powerful people” whom she claimed Epstein made her have sex with.
The new documents were filed in a Florida court 24 hours before Andrew was expected to deliver his first public remarks about his controversial relationship with Epstein, a convicted sex offender, and the accusations levelled by Roberts.
Related: Jeffrey Epstein: inside the decade of scandal entangling Prince AndrewRelated: Jeffrey Epstein: inside the decade of scandal entangling Prince Andrew
Buckingham Palace has repeatedly and forcefully denied Andrew had sex with Roberts but so far declined to respond to any specific questions about his friendship with Epstein or comment directly on alleged specific encounters with Roberts when she was a teenager. “I had sex with him three times, including one orgy,” Roberts claims in her affidavit. “I knew he was a member of the British royal family, but I just called him “Andy”.” Roberts also claimed that Epstein required her to recount personal details about her alleged sexual encounter with Andrew, adding: “Epstein appeared to be collecting private information about Andy.”
The Duke will speak at a reception at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Thursday evening – his first public appearance since Roberts’ allegations resurfaced in court papers on 30 December. The new documents were filed 24 hours before Andrew is due to carry out his first public engagement since Roberts levelled broad allegations at him in court papers on 30 December.
The Palace previously described Roberts’ allegations as “categorically untrue” and forcefully denied “any form of sexual contact or relationship” between Andrew and Roberts, adding: “The allegations made are false and without any foundation.” Palace aides have indicated that Andrew may use a televised speech during the World Economic Forum in Davos on Thursday night to address the controversy over his controversial relationship with Epstein and personally reinforce Buckingham Palace’s forceful denials of Roberts’s accusations. Shortly after the court documents were filed on Wednesday, a Palace spokesperson said: “We have nothing to add to our earlier comments.”
Palace aides have said Andrew plans to use the appearance to publicly deny the allegations. The Palace has previously described Roberts’ allegations as “categorically untrue” and strenuously denied “any form of sexual contact or relationship” between Andrew and Roberts. The Palace previously added: “The allegations made are false and without any foundation.”
Shortly after the court documents were filed on Wednesday, Palace spokesperson said: “We have nothing to add to our earlier comments.” However, the royal household has so far declined to respond to any specific questions about Andrew’s friendship with Epstein or his apparent encounters with Roberts when she was a teenager.
In her sworn affidavit, Roberts adds: “I have seen Buckingham Palace’s recent “emphatic” denial that Prince Andrew had sexual contact with me. That denial is false and hurtful to me. I did have sexual contact with him as I have described here – under oath. Given what he knows and has seen, I was hoping that he would simply voluntarily tell the truth about everything. I hope my attorneys can interview Prince Andrew under oath about the contacts and that he will tell the truth.” In the affidavit, Roberts states: “I have seen Buckingham Palace’s recent ‘’emphatic’ denial that Prince Andrew had sexual contact with me. That denial is false and hurtful to me. I did have sexual contact with him, as I have described here under oath. Given what he knows and has seen, I was hoping that he would simply voluntarily tell the truth about everything. I hope my attorneys can interview Prince Andrew under oath about the contacts, and that he will tell the truth.”
She adds in her affidavit that she has instructed her attorneys “to pursue all reasonable and legitimate means to have criminal charges brought against these powerful people for the crimes they have committed against me and other girls”. The affidavit does not state which powerful individuals Roberts wants to see criminally indicted.
Wednesday’s court submission from Roberts, referred to in legal documents as Jane Doe 3, is her first legal move since her lawyers submitted a motion that named Andrew among several rich and powerful men she alleged she had been loaned out to by Epstein.
That original motion, filed on December 30 and first reported by the Guardian and Politico, was an attempt to add Roberts and another woman to as new plaintiffs to a lawsuit challenging a controversial plea deal that shielded Epstein and his co-conspirators from serious federal charges.
Under the agreement, in which Roberts and other women claim violated their rights as alleged victims, Epstein agreed to plead guilty to just one count of soliciting prostitution from an underage girl under Florida state law, serving just 13 months of an 18-month jail sentence.
Andrew is not a party to any legal proceedings.
The December 30 motion named Andrew as one of the men Roberts alleged she was forced to have sex with, but contained few details.
Wednesday’s motion and attached exhibits, however, contained significantly more detail about Roberts’ three alleged encounters with Andrew, the first of which she claims occurred in London in 2001. She said in the affidavit that Epstein emphasised “whatever the prince wanted, I was to make sure he got”.
Roberts alleged in her affidavit that Epstein obtained girls for his influential friends “so that they would ‘owe him,’ they would ‘be in his pocket,’ and he would ‘have something on them.’ She claimed: ‘Epstein thought he could get leniency if he was ever caught doing anything illegal, or more so that he could escape trouble altogether.’”
The affidavit also includes a photograph showing the Prince with his arms around her waist. That picture, Roberts claimed in her affidavit, was taken in the London townhouse where the alleged sexual encounter took place.
“Epstein took a picture of me and Andy with my own camera,” Roberts said of the image in her affidavit. “Andy has his left arm around my waist and is smiling. The picture was developed on March 13 2001, and was taken sometime shortly before I had it developed. I was 17 years old at the time.”
In her affidavit Roberts also alleges: “When I got back from my trip, Epstein paid me more than he had paid me to be with anyone else – approximately $15,000. That money was for what I had done, and to keep my mouth shut about ‘working’ with the prince.”
She alleged the second sexual encounter took place in New York, in Epstein’s mansion. “I was only paid $400 from Epstein for servicing Andy that time,” Roberts states in the affidavit.
In the affidavit, she adds: “The third time I had sex with Andy was in an orgy on Epstein’s private island in the US Virgin Islands. I was around 18 at the time. Epstein, Andy, approximately eight other young girls, and I had sex together. The other girls all seemed and appeared to be under the age of 18 and didn’t really speak English.”
The letter to Andrew from an attorney representing Roberts’s lawyers features the same photograph of Andrew with his arm around Roberts. “This letter is a formal request … to interview you, under oath, regarding interactions that you had with Jane Doe No 3 beginning in approximately early 2001,” it states.
In the letter, attorney Jack Scarola told Andrew he wanted to “discuss events that occurred at the time that the photograph was taken – and shortly thereafter”.
The lawyers said they also wanted to question Andrew about his “subsequent interactions” with Roberts in New York later that year. “The interview could be conducted at a time and place of your choosing,” wrote Scarola.
The letter, dated January 14, does not appear to have been received by the Palace. “Federal Express has informed us that the letter has been refused by the recipient,” Roberts’s lawyers state in their main court motion.
As well as naming Andrew, the original December 30 court filing named the French model scout Jean Luc Brunel and Harvard criminal lawyer Alan Dershowitz among the “many other powerful men” Roberts alleges she and other young women were forced by Epstein to have sex with.
Brunel has not responded to repeated requests to comment on Roberts’ allegations. Dershowitz has strenuously and repeatedly contested her claims and has mounted a concerted legal campaign to rebut the allegations. Earlier this month, lawyers for Dershowitz sought to formally intervene in the case to strike the “outrageous and impertinent” allegations against him.
Wednesday’s court submission from Roberts’s lawyers was a direct response to Dershowitz, opposing his legal bid to intervene in the case.
“Her allegations against Prince Andrew are strongly corroborated,” Roberts’ lawyers claim in their motion, adding that despite Buckingham Palace’s denials, the royal household “has not attempted to explain what led to the Prince having his picture taken with his arm around a 17- year-old American girl at night in London in an intimate setting in a private residence”.
Dershowitz on Wednesday reiterated his denial of Roberts’ accusations and alleged that she had now committed perjury by stating them in a sworn affidavit. “I categorically deny that I ever had underage sex with anyone,” he said. “My denial is as categorical as any could be. Everything she says about me is not only completely false but provably false.”