According to New York federal court records, Prince Andrew, Duke, was served with a lawsuit for sexual assault filed against him by Jeffrey Epstein's accusers.
Virginia Giuffre (38), is suing Andrew in the US District Court for New York. She claims that the duke sexually assaulted her multiple times in New York, London and Epstein's private island on the US Virgin Islands. This happened between 2000 and 2002, when Andrew was 18 years old.
Giuffre has denied ever having sex, including in a tense BBC interview from November 2019. In which he tried to defend himself, the duke claimed that he had never met Giuffre. Andrew declared that he would "step back" from his royal public duties shortly after the interview was broadcast.
Friday's affidavit states that Andrew's security guard received formal notice of the lawsuit at his home, Royal Lodge, Windsor Castle grounds.
Cesar Augusto Sepulveda stated in the affidavit that it took him two working days to deliver the documents. Andrew's security team had told him on Aug. 26 that they were not authorized to accept service of court processes or allow anyone to attend there to serve court process onto the property.
Sepulveda returned to Andrew the next day and met with Andrew's head security. He told him that he could leave the documents at one of the Royal Lodge Guards and they would then be forwarded on to the duke's legal department. Sepulveda was denied permission by the head of security to meet Andrew in person.
According to the documents, Gary Bloxsome, a London-based criminal defense lawyer, is listed as the duke's attorney. BuzzFeed News reached Bloxsome to discuss the affidavit and claim in the document that his security team was not allowed to receive court documents. Bloxsome did not respond.
According to ABC News Bloxsome, however, questioned the legality and called Giuffre's legal team "regrettable" according to a letter the network obtained. According to ABC News, the document was sent by Bloxsome on Sept. 6 to senior British judge Barbara Fontaine. The lawyer claimed that because of the manner in which the lawsuit was served, the service is invalid under British law.
Bloxsome reported that he wrote, "Absent being satisfied by some very good reason why so,".
On Monday, the first pretrial conference will be held virtually by telephone. Andrew's lawyers are not expected to participate in the conference, since no federal court documents were filed in his defense.
