Prince Andrew, Duke of York, has received a sexual assault lawsuit brought against him by one of Jeffrey Epstein’s accusers, according to New York federal court records.
Andrew is being sued in US District Court for the Southern District of New York by Virginia Joffrey, 38, who alleges that the Duke sexually abused her on multiple occasions in New York, London and on Epstein’s private island in the US Virgin Islands between 2000 and 2002 when she was younger than 18 years old.
The Duke has repeatedly denied having sex with Giuffre, most notably in a disastrous November 2019 BBC interview during which he tried to defend himself, claiming that he had never met her. Shortly after the interview aired, Andrew announce that he was “undoing” from his public, royal duties.
The affidavit of service provided Friday states that a member of Andrew’s security team received formal notice of the lawsuit against him at his home, Royal Lodge in the grounds of Windsor Castle, on August 27.
In the affidavit, Cesar Augusto Sepulveda said it took two days to deliver the documents because on his first attempt on August 26, Andrew’s security team told him he had been instructed not to accept any judicial proceeding or to “allow anyone to be there for the purpose of servicing a property-based trial” .
When he returned the next day, Sepúlveda met Chief Security Andrew, who told him he could leave the documents with one of the Royal Lodge’s guards and they would be forwarded to the Duke’s legal team. The head of security refused to allow Sepúlveda to serve Andrew personally.
The documents mention London-based criminal defense attorney Gary Bloxom as the Duke’s attorney. BuzzFeed News has reached out to Bloxsome for comment on the service’s testimony and the document’s claim that its security team was instructed not to receive court documents. did not answer.
However, according to News lettersBloxsome reportedly questioned the legality of the service and described the actions of Giuffre’s legal team as “regrettable” in a letter obtained by the network. In the document, which ABC News said was sent by Bloxsome to Britain’s chief justice Barbara Fontaine on September 6, the lawyer claimed that the manner in which the lawsuit was filed renders the service void under British law.
“In the absence of conviction with some good reason to do so, it is unlikely that our client would be willing to consent to any form of alternative service while the approach to serving these actions remains erratic and the validity of the claim remains open to doubt,” Bloxsome reportedly wrote.
The first introductory conference will be held virtually by teleconference on Monday. It is unclear whether the lawyers representing Andrew will ever participate, as no documents were presented in federal court in his defense.
Giuffre was one many women Epstein, a longtime classmate of Andrew, has been accused of sexually assaulting minors.
Epstein, a prominent financier, He killed himself In a federal detention center on August 10, 2019, while facing crime charges sex trafficking and abuse of dozens of underage girls, some as young as 14 years old.
In her complaint against Andrew, filed on August 9, Joffrey claimed she was “forced by explicit or implicit threats” by Epstein, his then-girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell, and Andrew himself to have sex with the Duke. The complaint included a photo of 17-year-old Giuffre, then Virginia Roberts, and Andrew, who had his arm around her waist.
The complaint says Andrew sexually assaulted her “knowing that she was a victim of sex trafficking and forced to engage in sexual acts with him”.
In a statement provided to BuzzFeed News on the day the lawsuit was filed, Joffrey said she finally “holds Prince Andrew responsible for what he did to me.”
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