timhau
NWO Litter Technician
You could have just said 'I have none'.
Split Thread Virginia Guiffre v Duke of York
- Thread starter Vixen
- Start date
You could have just said 'I have none'.
Lots of speculation here. Again, based on what? What you would do? She's not you.
And I repeat, her lawyers don't need the business. Maybe she's just tired of the son of the Queen of England insisting that she's a crazy liar.
None of the Queen's children (excluding Charles) have a particularly lavish lifestyle, Anne or Edward for example. This is part of the issue with Andrew, why he skived off people like Epstein or traded on his connections, because the Queen is quite frugal and does not give a lot of money to the children. My guess is he has far less assets than some people think. Most peoples biggest assets are real estate and he does not have that. There may be a fair list of creditors wanting payment before he has to pay Giuffre including his own lawyers. There is no guarantee since he is no longer a working royal, and has married off his daughters, that his allowance will remain as large as it has been.
Would the Queen be prepared to see him go bankrupt? Bankruptcy is less onerous I think in the UK than in the US, if he went bankrupt he could ask the court that he not be liable for some or all of any damages, he may be very likely to not have to pay punitive damages because UK courts do not recognise punitive damages. I guess it would depend on whether it was thought that the Queen would suffer damage by not paying the penalty for the misbehaviour of her son.
??? He recently cleared an outstanding debt on a Swiss chalet that's worth some £18m. £18m-worth of Swiss chalet is not a 'real estate asset'?
Maybe she is fed up, but some one needs to pay the costs, and it will not be cheap. Even if legal advice is pro bono, the court costs, witness fees, secretarial services will mount up. The eighty year old rich lawyer may not want paid, all the others involved will do. Although given he represented Theranos and got paid in shares he may not be worth quite as much as he was. I guess it may depend is he funding it himself, or is it the law firm, if it is the law firm then they may be a bit more hard nosed.
I thought he sold it to clear the debts? An asset he no longer has. The cash may well have been dispersed. He has Sarah, Beatrice and Eugenie to keep in frocks.
catsmate
No longer the 1
- Joined
- Apr 9, 2007
- Messages
- 33,769
That's not in evidence. Given his extremely dubious past "friends" and their subsidies (David Rowland for example) there is no guarantee that he paid the money owed from his own funds. A debt he's been trying to evade for years.
Reports say he sold (or is selling) an 18-million-pound property to satisfy a 6.6-million-pound debt. Sounds like a pretty substantial profit. I doubt he's looking for a job.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jan/11/prince-andrew-sell-swiss-chalet
The owner says the debt has been cleared.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jan/11/prince-andrew-sell-swiss-chalet
No. He cleared the debt in order to be able to sell it. It's on public record. Why did you make your claim without checking? It would have taken only a minute.
(thank you to other posters for confirming this)
eta: And the sale has yet to be made, so the cash has not been 'dispersed'. As of today he has found a buyer it seems.
Last edited:
The usual course is that the sale of the property clears mortgages / claims due on the property. It would not be usual to pay the debts before selling, but as part of the sale process. The point I was trying to make is he does not have the odd £millions to pay off the debt prior to selling this property. He is not cash rich. We cannot assume that there are not other debts on the property. He was always dependant on others for hospitality etc.
Giuffre appears to have no other form of livelihood than litigation (she may make money from interviews articles etc.). My assertion is that Windsor as an individual is not very wealthy, and may be considerably less wealthy by the end of any trial as transnational litigation is very expensive. Giuffre's lawyer may be working pro bono, but given the client is wealthy and the case is one that fees can be claimed on (and will be very costly) it seems more likely that this will be a contingency fee arrangement.
Of particular note is that (assuming Windsor has no assets outside of the UK) any award by the court has then to be enforced as a debt in the English courts. Punitive damages will not be recognised. Arguably with regards to if Windsor had sex with Giuffre in London it may be against public policy to allow a New York court to award damages for a 'criminal act' in London that was legal in London.
It may be the sole act she will be seeking compensation for is the act(s) that occurred in New York, and the events in London and USVI will be evidence of a pattern of abuse but not directly compensatable by the court.
One reason that Windsor is likely to defend vigorously is that he remains vulnerable to a criminal charge of rape in the USVI. Any admission he had sex with Giuffre would leave him vulnerable to criminal charges. Unlike New York there is no statute of limitations.
LondonJohn
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- May 12, 2010
- Messages
- 20,964
I suspect the true state of affairs is somewhat different from the suggestions here so far.
Firstly, I think that the Queen had already pledged to fund Andrew for as much as it would take to make it go away. And I think a conditional "decision tree" pair of scenarios was formulated and agreed by all parties within the Royal Family, well in advance of the judicial ruling last week.
I think that (rather obviously) Scenario 1 was if the judge threw out Giuffre's lawsuit in its entirety: I think that had that happened, the Queen would have covered all outstanding legal fees, and Andrew would - after a suitable waiting period of a couple of years or so - have been able to make a very limited return to public life.
And I think that Scenario 2 covered every other possibility (and note here that the judge didn't actually throw out Andrew's motion for dismissal last week - he merely ruled that this was the wrong point in the proceedings to assess the motion).
So..... whether the judge had thrown Andrew's motion out entirely last week, or whether he'd simply deferred a ruling on the motion (which is actually what happened), I think Scenario 2 went live in either case.
And Scenario 2 is "make this go away, as quietly and as quickly as possible, and the Queen will pay as much as it takes to make that happen". But the (pre-agreed) quid-pro-quo of this scenario was the cutting loose of Andrew (which is why that happened so quickly and brutally last week, hot on the heels of the judicial ruling: it had all been worked out, and agreed to by all parties, in advance).
My confident prediction is that within a month or so, Andrew will settle out of court (using the Queen's money), without any admission of culpability. It's worth noting at this point that when Giuffre's lawyer says things like "she wants her day in court" or "she wants the truth to come out".... this - more often than not - is simply posturing as a tactic to extract more money in an out-of-court settlement. Everyone has their price, and I cast-iron guarantee that there will be a sum of money that is sufficiently acceptable to Giuffre to engineer a no-fault OOC settlement.
It will almost certainly be a very large sum of money - maybe in the high two-figure millions. But I predict that the Queen, whose courtiers and bankers will probably have started on the financial engineering and asset liquidation months ago, will readily pony up in order to a) protect the image and reputation(!) of the Royal Family, and b) clear this thing off the table well before the Queen's Platinum Jubilee celebrations take place.
As I said, I think that the moment the judge didn't grant Andrew's motion to dismiss last week, a previously-arranged/agreed and well-choreographed process kicked in. And that all parties in the RF - including the Queen, Charles, William and Andrew - already knew the plan in advance: that Andrew would hand back his HRH and his patronages, and that the Queen would agree to pay whatever it took to settle out of court on a no-fault basis.
Firstly, I think that the Queen had already pledged to fund Andrew for as much as it would take to make it go away. And I think a conditional "decision tree" pair of scenarios was formulated and agreed by all parties within the Royal Family, well in advance of the judicial ruling last week.
I think that (rather obviously) Scenario 1 was if the judge threw out Giuffre's lawsuit in its entirety: I think that had that happened, the Queen would have covered all outstanding legal fees, and Andrew would - after a suitable waiting period of a couple of years or so - have been able to make a very limited return to public life.
And I think that Scenario 2 covered every other possibility (and note here that the judge didn't actually throw out Andrew's motion for dismissal last week - he merely ruled that this was the wrong point in the proceedings to assess the motion).
So..... whether the judge had thrown Andrew's motion out entirely last week, or whether he'd simply deferred a ruling on the motion (which is actually what happened), I think Scenario 2 went live in either case.
And Scenario 2 is "make this go away, as quietly and as quickly as possible, and the Queen will pay as much as it takes to make that happen". But the (pre-agreed) quid-pro-quo of this scenario was the cutting loose of Andrew (which is why that happened so quickly and brutally last week, hot on the heels of the judicial ruling: it had all been worked out, and agreed to by all parties, in advance).
My confident prediction is that within a month or so, Andrew will settle out of court (using the Queen's money), without any admission of culpability. It's worth noting at this point that when Giuffre's lawyer says things like "she wants her day in court" or "she wants the truth to come out".... this - more often than not - is simply posturing as a tactic to extract more money in an out-of-court settlement. Everyone has their price, and I cast-iron guarantee that there will be a sum of money that is sufficiently acceptable to Giuffre to engineer a no-fault OOC settlement.
It will almost certainly be a very large sum of money - maybe in the high two-figure millions. But I predict that the Queen, whose courtiers and bankers will probably have started on the financial engineering and asset liquidation months ago, will readily pony up in order to a) protect the image and reputation(!) of the Royal Family, and b) clear this thing off the table well before the Queen's Platinum Jubilee celebrations take place.
As I said, I think that the moment the judge didn't grant Andrew's motion to dismiss last week, a previously-arranged/agreed and well-choreographed process kicked in. And that all parties in the RF - including the Queen, Charles, William and Andrew - already knew the plan in advance: that Andrew would hand back his HRH and his patronages, and that the Queen would agree to pay whatever it took to settle out of court on a no-fault basis.
No he hasn't - he just won't use it officially anymore. In terms of who must bow to who in the family and all that stupid, meaningless crap the royal family wraps itself in hasn't changed.
Matthew Best
Penultimate Amazing
But don't we already know that he's the one with the dodgy memory? He doesn't remember the photo of him and Giuffre being taken, for one.
Craig4
Penultimate Amazing
Okay, the defense is at the "Throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks," phase. There is photographic evidence of the plaintiff, the defendant and a now convicted sex offender who was found guilty of arranging sex for another convicted sex offenders' guest. The defendant was one of said sex offender's guests. I see problems with the recovered memory defense. This dog won't hunt.
RecoveringYuppy
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- Nov 29, 2006
- Messages
- 14,185
If this holds up then it could argue against the false memory claim since it happened close to the events.
It would seem to me that establishing that sex actually happened is the real sticking point now.
catsmate
No longer the 1
- Joined
- Apr 9, 2007
- Messages
- 33,769
Yes I am aware that the money was paid, in fact I posted about that last week. However there is no determination of who paid the outstanding 6.5M.
Last edited:
Sounds like another payday for Dr. Loftus.
I think there are two issues.
The first is did some sort of (criminal) sexual act occur. The second did it result in harm. Both are required for compensation to be awarded.
The significance of Andriano's testimony is that Giuffre boasted about having sex with a Prince, and far from appearing hurt or upset by the encounter she was pleased with herself for having done so. This would also imply she was not an unwilling* partner in the interaction.
It is entirely legitimate for the defence to run a two track argument; 1) I never had sex with that woman Giuffre, 2) Even if the court rules I did she suffered no significant harm so any damages should be minimal.
As part of minimising the damages that Windsor will be liable for I think the strategy is to say that she was abused from an early age within her family, that she was the 'girl friend' of a professional sex trafficker when she was fourteen. That the trauma and psychological harm she had suffered had already occurred by the time the alleged sexual interactions occurred. To put it crudely when Windsor met her she was already damaged goods and he caused no additional damage.
* I appreciate the argument that she may not have had free agency to make decisions about her own body in the particular situation she found herself in, but if it appeared to Windsor she had agency and at least in New York and London she was above age of consent then this is important in minimising his responsibility for any harm she suffered.
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
This reminds me of that scene in a recent Transformers movie where one of the characters just happens to have a laminated printout out the relevant Romeo and Juliet laws in his wallet, because somehow the matter of his underage girlfriend is an important part of the script and his character.
My view is that the moment you start excusing dating a minor as technically legal, you've already gone too far off the rails to deserve the benefit of my doubt.
ETA: "I know it looks bad but let me explain," isn't really a position an ethical partner should end up in. And for what? Was this Andrew's true love, towards whom he always acted with circumspection and diligent restraint? Was he encouraging her parents as chaperones while she matured? Was he taking care to avoid even the appearance of grooming or exploitation?
No!
He was accepting a young woman as a sexual favor from a known pimp with a reputation of sourcing children for sex. "Don't worry, Your Highness. You're legally in the clear on this one. Enjoy!"
This isn't a man whose reputation needs rehabilitating.
Last edited:
Guybrush Threepwood
Trainee Pirate
I think the strategy of 'By the time I met her she was so messed up it didn't matter what I did to her' has the possibility of backfiring quite spectacularly.
It certainly doesn't make Andrew's actions look any better to me anyway.
I don't understand these contorted defenses of a predator. Her claim is that she was assaulted and abused. For that purpose, her age doesn't matter. Where it does matter is that her youth made her vulnerable to manipulation and intimidation. She may well have consented to sex, in the sense that she didn't forcefully resist, because she saw no alternative. It was something she was groomed to expect. As an adult she has come to understand her victimization and its lifetime impact.
And arguing that a 17-year-old girl is so damaged that anybody can do anything they want to her is not likely to go over well with an American jury.
Last edited:
After reading about this I get the impression that Andrew could've avoided this whole situation if he had simply payed her off long ago. If some of the statements Giuffre made to a friend after she was "sexually exploited" are genuine it seems unlikely she suffered any significant emotional damage from this episode and quite possibly enjoyed her stay in the UK. If so she might have even been amenable to visit the UK again.
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
The apologetics just get creepier and creepier.
I don't think that is the way it will be put! This would imply Windsor knew something of her background. I hate to disillusion you, but guys do not take a detailed psychological and social history from casual pick ups at a club which are likely to be one night stands.
If the scenario is as reported she was told to "Do to him what you do to Epstein", she would be coming on to him at Tramps (a club), due diligence by him would be checking she was over the age of consent (in the UK). We are talking about the twenty first century, with sexually empowered women, there is no expectation that a man you meet at a club will marry you if he has sex with you (Four Weddings and a Funeral is not what real life in London was like!).
The sex has to be criminal for the case to go forward. It may be sufficient to claim it was criminal because she was subject to trafficking. It may not be necessary to show Windsor committed a crime. Indeed in a somewhat similar instance in the Maxwell trial the judge ruled that sex with a seventeen year old in London was not illicit because she was above the age of consent in London. What I do not know is whether in New York having sex with someone over the age of consent who expressed a desire to have sex with you would be a crime because someone else paid them to have sex with you and trafficked them for the purpose of having sex. Clearly the trafficker is guilty of a crime but is the 'unwitting' sex partner also guilty?
In the UK, there is a separation between proving liability and apportioning damages assuming something similar in the US. The argument that Giuffre had suffered harm prior to meeting Windsor will only happen once he has been found liable for damages and the question become not what you are but how much you charge.
Giuffre is the one who has to claim that sex with Andrew caused her harm. She is the one who will have describe the harm she suffered from him, she is the one who will need to put a monetary cost on the harm.
The defence will be nice and sympathetic, 'Mrs Giuffre suffered a terrible life, sexually abused from age seven by multiple men, this abuse from young childhood has left deep scars. We all sympathise and feel for her. But the jury are asked to do a difficult task, they have to apportion harm. How much harm was done by ten years of abuse prior to Mrs. Giuffre meeting our client, how much by the continued sexual exploitation for the next three years after meeting our client? How much by the episode when our client met Mrs. Giuffre? This is a difficult and heart rending choice members of the jury but justice calls for you to attribute to our client only the harm caused by our clients actions. However sympathetic we feel for the terrible suffering she suffered as a child it is not the responsibility of our client to compensate for harm caused by others. Indeed Mrs. Giuffre has been compensated for the harm she suffered over so many years at the hands of Epstein, and Maxwell. Epstein and Maxwell those evil people who were convicted have rightly compensated Mrs Giuffre for their actions.
We all admire how she has married and had a long and happy marriage with a beautiful family and a beautiful $millions house. It was only right that Epstein and Maxwell compensated her for the harm done by them to her. It was evil and a tragedy how having moved on from being the girl friend of one convicted sex trafficker she fell into working for another. How she was so corrupted that she went out and brought back young teenagers for Epstein and took money for doing so. How she was sent out to seduce people of power and influence and was paid for doing so. She was corrupted by those evil people into participating in their evil acts. We have heard how she boasted of how she succeeded in having sex with a Prince, having be sent out to seduce him. So members of the jury you have to be clear minded and analytic you must judge how much harm did Mrs. Giuffre suffer when she was sent out to seduce our client?
I have seen no allegation that she was assaulted and abused by Windsor. (That i have not seen such a claim does not mean it is not out there nor am I denying it might have happened.) The only claim I have seen was that she was told by Maxwell to have sex with him, then boasted of doing so to a friend later. I entirely accept that she was in an abusive situation where she was manipulated into having sex with Windsor. However, that is very different from claiming that he forced her into sex or physically abused her.
This thread is on trials, I am trying to discuss the tactics of the trial. There is a separation between morality and legality, between what actually happens and how it is played out in court. If one is discussing what the defence tactics might be this no more implies I am defending sexual exploitation than the lawyer defending a paedophile is himself or herself a paedophile. The main principle of this site is to discuss the argument, not the arguer. Even evil people deserve a fair trial. They may not be guilty of the actual thing they are accused of.
FWIW I think the Windsor is a bad egg, greedy, exploitative, stupid and makes bad choices. I suspect he did have sex with Giuffre and probably other young women in other places provided by evil rich men with whom he associated who also thought it was hospitable to provide young women for the sexual gratification of their guests. But all that is irrelevant to the actual process of the trial and the three occasions when it was alleged Windsor and Giuffre had sexual relations. Certainly her comments at the time do not imply there was physical coercion by Windsor. I entirely accept there was psychological coercion by Epstein and Maxwell. I do not know how much blame can be put on Windsor for the actions of Epstein. Whether I think Windsor had sex with Giuffre is to some extent irrelevant if we are discussing the court case. This is something that needs to be established in court.
The argument that might be made is that Windsor should have known that Epstein was sexually exploiting and trafficking these young women. That if he had known then he was part of a criminal conspiracy. I haven't seen this argument made, but it would be a powerful one. It is certainly one that I am sympathetic with. You would have to be pretty stupid not to think there was something a bit dubious about all these young women into older men. On the other hand I think Windsor genuinely believed that the young women hanging around the evil rich men he associated with wanted to have sex with him because he was a Prince. That they were just party girls out for fun. He is pretty stupid.
Thank you for gracing us with descriptions of your reflexive emotional response. We are so ever grateful.
I wish I had said (all) that.
What? The premise of her case is that she was assaulted by Andrew. That's the reason for her suit. What do you think she's suing for?
https://www.rollingstone.com/cultur...uit-virginia-giuffre-jeffrey-epstein-1210054/
https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/12/us/prince-andrew-virginia-giuffre/index.html
My uncertainty relates to
If Epstein / Maxwell made express or implied threats to make Giuffre have sex with Windsor, but as far as Windsor was aware she was having sex with him willingly and was (at least in NY and London) over the age of consent was Windsor assaulting her? Clearly Maxwell / Epstein were sexually abusing her (all be it at second hand in this case), but was Windsor? Since this is not a criminal trial this question will not be answered. What I have not seen is a description or claim that Windsor was a first person abuser, that he physically forced her or threatened her himself to make her have some form of sexual relations with him. Notably she is not accusing him of rape. Since she claims to have had sex with him, but does not say she was raped, I am unclear about exactly what she means.
My understanding was that Maxwell / Giuffre created an environment in which young women were coerced / paid to have sex with Epstein's guest / associates / friends. I can understand the argument that in this environment the young women were not able to give genuinely free consent to sex. What I am unclear about is when the young women were told to service the needs of Epstein's guests in the same way as they did for Epstein were the guests themselves committing an offence (leaving aside age of consent issues)? Is a mens rea needed?
I above stated that I wondered if the argument would be made that Windsor and other guests were aware or should have been aware that the young women attending to their 'needs' were trafficked and / or in other ways coerced into sexual relationships with Epstein's guests. That they were in fact part of the conspiracy. This then requires no physical or verbal action by Windsor to force Giuffre into a sexual act, merely awareness that implied or expressed threats had been made by others, forcing her to do so. It does not even require Windsor to have initiated the act, if she pulled down his pants and gave him a bj whilst he panted out 'Are sure you really want to do this' whilst knowing that she had been told to do so then he would be party to the crime. In the same situation if he had no knowledge that Giuffre was forced into the act would he be an abuser? I haven't seen this argument made (which does not mean it has not been made), but I find it quite believable. I think this will come under the phrase 'plausible deniability'.
Some crimes carry "strict liability:" that is, if you did the act, it doesn't matter what you were thinking. Statutory rape is one of them. It could well be that Giuffre's lawyers will argue that Andrew "knew or should have known" that a teenage girl making herself available to him wasn't acting freely, even if she was slightly over the age of consent.
If you're a teenager (hell even an adult) who's been flown to a billionaire's island and have no way off other than transport at his gift, you're going to be feeling pretty isolated, especially if things like mobile phones are removed, or his goons drag in some seeming lawyers to get you to sign things that you're not going to tell.
They mightn't have any legal weight but it would be intimidating - especially if you're vulnerable.
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
One benefit of grooming the young and naive is that when it works, the victim may well enthusiastically participate in their own exploitation. It isn't even necessarily restricted to outright grooming, either. People without a lot of life experience can internalize entirely the wrong social norms, if their first workplace happens to be toxic.
We should not assume that an enthusiastic 17 year-old sex worker is an independent, empowered woman making an informed and mature choice to freely engage in sex work for her own purposes. In Giuffre's case, that assumption goes against everything we know about Epstein, his proclivities, and the services he offered to his "friends".
Producing enthusiastic call girls who are technically of age is the acme of the groomer's art. Not least because it gives a thin veneer of plausible deniability. That doesn't mean we have to play along with their shenanigans. As Andrew did, and is still doing.
We should not assume that an enthusiastic 17 year-old sex worker is an independent, empowered woman making an informed and mature choice to freely engage in sex work for her own purposes. In Giuffre's case, that assumption goes against everything we know about Epstein, his proclivities, and the services he offered to his "friends".
Producing enthusiastic call girls who are technically of age is the acme of the groomer's art. Not least because it gives a thin veneer of plausible deniability. That doesn't mean we have to play along with their shenanigans. As Andrew did, and is still doing.
Exactly
It also goes against everything we know about predators and their victims. No one can claim she stood as an equal to Epstein, Maxwell and Andrew.
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
It also kinda goes against what I've slowly been learning about young women and sex work in general. It goes back to what I said about Andrew earlier: If you have to reassure yourself that your sex partner is technically of age, you're already wrong, regardless of anything else.
Yes, I appreciate some crimes have strict liability and these differ across jurisdictions that is why I said I don't know whether this would count as a crime. I certainly think the 'knew or should have known' argument is good one.
Entirely agree.