Prince Andrew has reached a settlement with Virginia Giuffre, a court filing showed on Tuesday, after she accused him in a lawsuit of sexually abusing her more than two decades ago when she was 17.
Giuffre sued the Duke of York last August, alleging he battered her while the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was trafficking her. Epstein was found hanging in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center on August 10, 2019, while awaiting trial for sex trafficking, in what New York City's medical examiner called a suicide.In January, a 2009 settlement agreement between Giuffre and Epstein was made public as part of Giuffre's civil lawsuit against Britain's Prince Andrew. The agreement said Giuffre would be paid $500,000 as part of the deal and provided a release for "any other person or entity who could have been included as a potential defendant" against various claims by Giuffre. However, a federal judge ruled that the case against Prince Andrew could continue despite the settlement clause. This new settlement Giuffre accepted indicates the end of the trial against Prince Andrew.
The sexual abuse allegations led to Prince Andrew's stripping of all royal and military honors by the Queen in January, rendering him unable to use the title 'His Royal Highness’ in any official capacity.