Virginia Giuffre, who accused Prince Andrew of sexual assault, has dropped her lawsuit against Alan Dershowitz, a high-profile lawyer. She had claimed that she was forced to have sex with him.
The 39-year-old also dropped a bombshell saying that she "may have made a mistake" in claiming that Jeffrey Epstein trafficked her to Dershowitz two decades ago. She said she had been very young at the time and it was a very stressful and traumatic environment.
Dershowitz had denied the allegations from the very beginning. The 84-year-old commended Giuffre for her courage in stating publicly that she may have been mistaken about him.
Giuffre's fresh statements now bring the three-year court battle to an end. She had sued Dershowitz in April 2019 for defamation and emotional stress for calling her a "complete, total liar".
An Infamous Case that was Full of Big Names
Some big names with the likes of Prince Andrew, Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell and even Donald Trump had popped up in this case. Giuffre alleged Prince Andrew, who because of the case had his military ranks and royal patronages removed, of sexually abusing her when she was 17. She said the then Duke of York forced her to have intercourse at the London home of Ghislaine Maxwell. Andrew agreed to pay an undisclosed settlement fee rumoured to be around $3.4 million to $5.6 million in February this year to avoid a civil trial on the sexual assault allegations in New York.
Epstein was arrested in 2019. He was charged with federal sex trafficking charges related to his abuse of underage girls at properties in Florida, New York, the Caribbean and New Mexico over several decades. Giuffre alleged she was trafficked by Epstein to have sex with Andrew when she was 17.
Maxwell was arrested in July 2020 and charged with trafficking underage victims for Epstein and participating in the abuse of young girls herself. The British socialite was convicted of charges including sex trafficking, conspiracy and transportation of a minor for illegal sexual activity and sentenced to 20-years in prison in June. Giuffre had told the court that she met Maxwell while working at Mar-a-Lago in the mid-2000s.
