Prince Andrew news - live: Virginia Giuffre’s $500,000 Epstein deal is unsealed

Approached by The Independent shortly after the 2009 settlement was unsealed, Prince Andrew’s spokesperson said they had “no comment”.

The 12-page settlement states that Ms Giuffre: “Hereby remise, release, acquit, satisfy, and forever discharge the said Second Parties and any other person or entity who could have been included as a potential defendant from all, and all manner of, action and actions of Virginia Roberts, including State and Federal, cause and causes of action (common law or statutory), suits, debts, dues, sums of money, accounts, reckonings, bonds, bills... and demands whatsoever in law or in equity for compensatory or punitive damages that said First Parties ever had or now have.”

It is understood that Andrew will claim he falls within the category of “other potential defendants” because Ms Giuffre had identified him as one of her alleged abusers at the time she entered into the 2009 settlement agreement.

She also specifically referred to “royalty” in her 2009 lawsuit against Epstein.

Read more from The Independent’s Bevan Hurley:

The unsealed settlement includes a clause which could support Prince Andrew’s claim that he does not bear liability in Ms Giuffre’s claims.

It provides a release for “any other person or entity who could have been included as a potential defendant” against allegations made by Ms Giuffre.

US District Judge Lewis Kaplan is slated to rule on the issue of liability at a hearing on Tuesday.

Jeffrey Epstein’s 2009 settlement with Virginia Giuffre has now been unsealed as part of Prince Andrew’s bid to have her case against him dismissed.

The agreement states that Ms Giuffre was to be paid $500,000 by Epstein. It does not mention the Duke of York by name, but his lawyers say it “releases” him from any liability from Ms Giuffre’s allegations.

The Independent’s Bevan Hurley has more:

Immediately after Ghislaine Maxwell was found guilty of sex trafficking charges, Jeffrey Epstein’s former lawyer Alan Dershowitz appeared on BBC to claim that the conviction helped discredit Virginia Giuffre’s claims against him and Prince Andrew.

Mr Dershowitz took it as a validation that the federal government didn’t call Ms Giuffre — who has accused Epstein, Mr Dershowitz, and the Duke of York of sexual abuse—as a witness to testify during the Maxwell trial.

“The government was very careful who it used as witnesses,” the attorney said. “It did not use as a witness the woman who accused Prince Andrew, who accused me, who accused many other people, because the government didn’t believe she was telling the truth.”

The Independent’s Josh Marcus reports:

The decision to unseal the 2009 settlement between Jeffrey Epstein and Virginia Giuffre was made by judges overseeing two cases filed by Ms Giuffre.

The first case accuses Prince Andrew of sexual assault, and the second case accuses Epstein’s former lawyer Alan Dershowitz of defamation.

The judges explained why the settlement should be made public in a ruling on 14 December 2021.

“Mr Epstein, as is well known, is deceased,” the judges wrote. “The document is well known to Ms Giuffre and, although under seal, has been available to all parties in these cases for some time.

“We question whether any proper purpose would be served by the continued secrecy of the document save, perhaps, the dollar amount of the settlement it provided for.”

Prince Andrew’s lawyers have previously claimed that the settlement agreement between Virginia Giuffre and Jeffrey Epstein “releases” the duke from liability in Ms Giuffre’s case against him.

That agreement, formalised in 2009, is set to be made public for the first time on Monday.

The duke’s lawyer, Andrew Brettler, has said the deal “releases Prince Andrew and others from any purported liability arising from the claims Giuffre asserted against the second son of the Queen”.

A US district judge is set to rule on the matter on Tuesday when he hears a request to dismiss Ms Giuffre’s lawsuit, which accuses Prince Andrew of sexually assaulting her as a teenager.

Ghislaine Maxwell’s brother has said she has no plans to make a deal with prosecutors to provide evidence about other people involved in sexual abuse by her and Jeffrey Epstein.

Maxwell was found guilty of five sex trafficking charges in a New York federal court last week. Faced with the possibility of up to 65 years in prison, there was speculation that Maxwell could strike a deal with prosecutors leading an investigation into Epstein.

However, her brother Ian Maxwell says that won’t happen.

He told the Sunday Times that the “prosecution confirmed no plea bargain offers were made or received” prior the trial, adding: “I expect that position to be maintained.”

That could mean good news for Prince Andrew, who is accused of having nonconsensual sex with a woman who claims she was sex trafficked by Epstein.

The ex-lover of the woman accusing Prince Andrew of sex abuse claimed that Prince Andrew did abuse Virginia Giuffre.

Anthony Figueroa says Ms Giuffre was “scared” of what monsters Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein told her to do with him, the Mirror reported.

Mr Figueroa claims Virginia Giuffre told him about her alleged abuse at the hands of the Duke of York 20 years ago when they were in a relationship.

He says she was “scared” by what Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell wanted her to do with the prince. And he claims the former sex slave admitted she “didn’t want to do it”.

“Being royal makes no difference. Andrew has to face up to the case,” he said.

“I remember the first time Virginia mentioned him in 2001. She knew she’d be meeting him and said she knew what they wanted her to do with him and she didn’t want to do it. She said she was scared and nervous. I told her she had to do whatever it took to feel safe.”

Prince Andrew has denied allegations against him.

Virginia Roberts Giuffre, 38, filed her suit against the Duke of York in the Southern District Court of New York in August under the state’s Child Victims Act.

The suit alleges Prince Andrew sexually abused Ms Giuffre as a teenager on multiple occasions in London, Manhattan, and the US Virgin Islands in 2001 - allegations which he denies.

Prince Andrew’s legal team have sought to have the case dismissed, arguing that a 2009 settlement between Ms Giuffre and Epstein will stop the civil sex lawsuit against the royal.

Our reporter, Megan Sheets, has the full story below:

The guests came from across the world, and from the highest ranks of society: celebrities and scientists and members of royal families, touching down in a private jet and then boarding a helicopter to the island. Its owner liked to call it “Little St Jeff”; locals called it “paedophile island”.

But what is the truth about Little St James, the 75-acre private paradise in the US Virgin Islands that billionaire sex abuser Jeffrey Epstein once called home?

Our reporter, Io Dodds, has the full report below: