Jeffrey Epstein’s former lawyer Alan Dershowitz has claimed Prince Andrew made a ‘terrible mistake’ by paying millions to settle a civil sexual assault case with Virginia Giuffre and ‘would have won’ if it went to court.
Mr Dershowitz, a former Harvard Law School professor, was previously accused of sexual abuse by Ms Giuffre before she went on to drop all her claims against him. He had long denied the allegation.
In 2022, Prince Andrew settled a suit out of court with Giuffre for an estimated £12million after she claimed they had sex three times while she was a teenager. The Duke of York has always denied having even met her.
Mr Dershowitz told Times Radio today: ‘I think he made a terrible mistake. I suspect he was pressured by his mother to make that mistake.
‘If he had fought that case, I believe he would have won, I believe the case would have been dismissed on a variety of grounds, but he didn’t want to sit through a deposition, or people around him didn’t want to sit through a deposition, so he settled the case.
Prince Andrew with a 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 went on to drop all her claims against him
In 2022, Prince Andrew settled a suit out of court with Giuffre for an estimated £12million
‘Often you settle cases, not because you’re guilty of what you’re charged, but because you don’t want to admit other things that you’ve done.’
He added: ‘I feel sorry for Prince Andrew for this reason, assuming everything they say about him is correct, the woman who accused him was over the age of consent.
‘She apparently bragged about it to her friends, and she collected millions and millions of dollars for that, yeah, I feel sorry for him.’
The age of consent in the UK is 16. It is 18 in Florida and 17 in New York.
Ms Giuffre had alleged that Epstein trafficked her to Dershowitz between 2000 and 2002, but he denied her claim.
In 2022 she withdrew the allegation, saying she was ‘very young’ and in a ‘very stressful and traumatic environment’ when she was around Epstein which led her to wrongly identify Mr Dershowitz.
Ms Giuffre dropped a defamation case she brought against Mr Dershowitz in 2019 with no financial payment made to either side.
It comes amid claims in the latest batch of unsealed court documents that Andrew was among a series of public figures who was secretly recorded having sex by Epstein.
Sarah Ransome, who gave a victim impact statement ahead of the sentencing of British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell for sex-trafficking, appeared to write a letter claiming Andrew, Richard Branson and Bill Clinton were filmed by the paedophile financier.
The extracts were flagged by a firm representing Mr Dershowitz, to demonstrate Ms Ransome ‘manifestly lacks credibility’. A representative for Mr Branson called the claims ‘baseless and unfounded’.
Sarah Ransome (pictured) appeared to claim Andrew was among three public figures filmed by Epstein having sex
The newly released documents also include a claim that the bath in which Prince Andrew was accused of sexually attacking Ms Giuffre when she was 17 was ‘too small for a man of Prince Andrew’s size to enjoy a bath in let alone sex’.
Ms Giuffre, who was trafficked for sex by Epstein, previously said Andrew sexually assaulted her in Ghislaine Maxwell’s London home, telling BBC Panorama in 2019: ‘There was a bath and it started there and then led into the bedroom.’
She added: ‘It didn’t last very long, the whole entire procedure. It was disgusting. He wasn’t mean or anything but he got up and he said, ”Thanks”, and walked out.’
The duke has strenuously denied the allegations, which have continued to hit the headlines over the past week because of the release of batches of court papers relating to a 2015 defamation case.
Maxwell’s solicitor Philip Barden said in his 2017 deposition, unsealed on Monday: ‘She (Ms Giuffre) claimed she did have sex with Prince Andrew and that the sex occurred 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 in let alone sex.’
He said Ms Giuffre’s ‘story’ alleging Andrew had sex with her ’caused a feeding frenzy for the press’, and called on the media to ‘cease and desist’ from continuing to publish, saying they faced ‘higher damages for ignoring my clear warning’ if they continued.
Maxwell, who has since been jailed for sex trafficking young girls for Epstein, is also previously said to have argued the tub – reported to be a standard size 5ft 6in by 2ft 4in bath and boxed in on three sides by walls – was too small for sex.
Ms Giuffre told Panorama she went to Tramp nightclub in London with Andrew and he was ‘the most hideous dancer I’ve ever seen in my life’ and ‘his sweat was … raining basically everywhere’.
Andrew claimed in his disastrous Newsnight interview that he had a medical condition in 2001, after suffering an overdose of adrenaline in the Falklands War when he was shot at, that meant he did not sweat.
He said the alleged encounter with Ms Giuffre in 2001 did not happen and he spent the day with his daughter, Princess Beatrice, taking her to Pizza Express in Woking for a party.
