Jeffrey Epstein's former lawyer Alan Dershowitz has claimed Prince Andrew made a “terrible mistake” by paying millions to settle a civil sexual assault lawsuit with Virginia Giuffre and would have “won” if it had gone to court.
Mr. Dershowitz, a former Harvard Law School professor, was previously accused of sexual abuse by Ms. Giuffre before she dropped all of her claims against him. He had long denied the accusation.
In 2022, Prince Andrew settled an out-of-court lawsuit with Giuffre for an estimated £12 million after she claimed they had sex three times as teenagers. The Duke of York has always denied ever meeting her.
Mr Dershowitz told Times Radio today: “I think he made a terrible mistake.” I suspect he was pressured into making that mistake by his mother.
“If he had fought this case, I think he would have won. I think the case would have been dismissed for a variety of reasons, but he didn't want to sit through a deposition, or the people around him didn't want to.” I sat through a deposition, so he settled the case.
Prince Andrew with 17-year-old Virginia Giuffre at Ghislaine Maxwell's townhouse in London
Alan Dershowitz, a former Harvard Law School professor, was previously accused of sexual abuse by Ms Giuffre before she dropped all her claims against him
“Often you settle cases not because you're guilty of what you're accused of, but because you don't want to admit to other things you've done.”
He added: “I feel sorry for Prince Andrew for this reason. Assuming everything they say about him is true, the woman who accused him was over the age of consent.”
“She apparently bragged about it to her friends and raked in millions and millions of dollars for it. Yes, I feel sorry for him.”
The age of consent in the UK is 16 years. In Florida it is 18 years and in New York it is 17 years.
Ms. Giuffre had alleged that Epstein smuggled her into Dershowitz between 2000 and 2002, but he disputed her claim.
In 2022, she retracted the allegation, saying she was “very young” and in a “very stressful and traumatic environment” around Epstein, which led her to falsely identify Mr. Dershowitz.
Ms. Giuffre dropped a defamation lawsuit she brought against Mr. Dershowitz in 2019 without either side making any financial payment.
This comes amid allegations in the latest unsealed court documents that Andrew was among a number of public figures whose sex was secretly recorded by Epstein.
Sarah Ransome, who issued a victim impact statement ahead of British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell's sex trafficking conviction, appeared to write a letter claiming that Andrew, Richard Branson and Bill Clinton were filmed by the pedophile financier .
The excerpts were flagged by a firm representing Mr. Dershowitz to show that Ms. Ransome “obviously lacks credibility.” A representative for Mr. Branson called the claims “baseless and without merit.”
In 2022, Prince Andrew settled an out-of-court lawsuit with Giuffre for an estimated £12 million
Sarah Ransome (pictured) appeared to claim that Andrew was among three public figures Epstein filmed having sex
The newly released documents also contain the claim that the bath where Prince Andrew was accused of sexually assaulting Ms Giuffre when she was 17 was “too small for a man of Prince Andrew's size to enjoy a bath, let alone sex.”
Ms Giuffre, who was trafficked for sex by Epstein, previously said Andrew sexually assaulted her at Ghislaine Maxwell's London home, telling BBC Panorama in 2019: “There was a bathroom and it started there and then led into the bedroom.”
She added: “The whole process didn't take very long.” It was disgusting. “He wasn’t mean or anything, but he stood up, said, ‘Thank you,’ and walked out.”
The duke has strenuously denied the allegations, which have continued to make headlines over the past week due to the publication of numerous court documents relating to a 2015 libel case.
Maxwell's lawyer Philip Barden said in his 2017 statement unsealed on Monday: “She (Ms Giuffre) claimed that she had actually had sex with Prince Andrew and that the sex had taken place in what can only be described as a very small bathtub “Too small for a man of Prince Andrew's size to enjoy a bath, let alone sex.”
He said Ms Giuffre's “story” alleging that Andrew had sex with her had “sparked a feeding frenzy in the press” and called on the media to stop publishing it, saying that they “faced greater harm if they ignored my clear warning.” ' if they continued.
Maxwell, now jailed on charges of sex trafficking young girls for Epstein, was also reported to have previously argued that the tub – reportedly a standard bathtub measuring 5ft 6in by 2ft 4in and enclosed by walls on three sides – was too small Sex.
Ms Giuffre told Panorama she went to the Tramp nightclub in London with Andrew and he was “the most hideous dancer I've ever seen in my life” and “his sweat was…basically raining everywhere”.
Andrew claimed in his disastrous Newsnight interview that he was suffering from illness in 2001 after suffering an adrenaline overdose in the Falklands War when he was shot at, which meant he didn't sweat.
He said the alleged encounter with Ms Giuffre in 2001 did not take place and that he had spent the day with his daughter, Princess Beatrice, taking her to a party at Pizza Express in Woking.