Prince Andrew’s lawyers announced on Tuesday that they had reached “an agreement in principle” with Virginia Giuffre, the woman who denounced him for sexual abuse when she was a minor.
In a brief letter to Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, the lawyers do not disclose the terms of the agreement but ask him to “suspend all terms” of the trial, which was scheduled to begin next fall, although there was no set date.
In the letter signed by David Boies, the prince’s lawyer, they anticipate to the judge that they are going to file a lawsuit to dismiss the case within 30 days.
Judge Kaplan now has the power to file the case, as well as to keep the terms of the settlement secret.
Judge Kaplan himself already refused in December to file the case, a request from the defense that was based on an agreement signed by Giuffre (now 38 years old and residing in Australia) and the late tycoon Jeffrey Epstein, who was the one who allegedly presented Giuffre to Prince Andrew.
In that agreement, signed in 2009, Giuffre gave up pursuing Epstein “and other potential defendants” for sexual abuse cases, in exchange for a payment of half a million dollars.
The judge then considered that the accusations against Andrew were not the same as those against Epstein, and also the case was seen in a different jurisdiction; In addition, he argued that the only people who could execute a confidential agreement were the signatories, a requirement that is supposedly fulfilled now.