Judge Challenges Prince Andrew's Right to Use Giuffre NDA to Tank Epstein Case

Prince Andrew may have no right to use a 2009 settlement agreement to get his Jeffrey Epstein-related rape lawsuit thrown out, the judge presiding over the case said.

The Duke of York's attorney was involved in heated exchanges with Judge Lewis Kaplan during attempts to stop Virginia Giuffre's civil case.

Giuffre alleges she was forced to have sex with the prince by Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell in 2001 when she was 17 and feared death if she refused.

The judge did not reach a final decision during the hearing on Tuesday, January 4, but said: "You will have a decision pretty soon."

Andrew Brettler, representing the duke, said Giuffre signed a $500,000 deal with Epstein in 2009 in which she agreed not to pursue allegations against other "potential defendants."

The settlement agreement also contained a separate paragraph suggesting it was "not intended to be used by any other person."

Kaplan told the court: "The defendant in this case is within the language of that sentence I read you 'any other person.' He is within the category of people who are not entitled to use the terms of the settlement."

David Boies, representing Giuffre, replied: "What the court is saying is that the parties actually explicitly agreed that any third party beneficiary rights would have to be asserted by the parties to the contract and couldn't be asserted by a potential defendant. Prince Andrew could not do it. The only person that could assert this release in this case would be Epstein, I think that's right your honor."

Brettler highlighted a section of the document that said "other potential defendants" would be released from liability.

He said: "I don't know who would be included in 'other potential defendants' if it wasn't all of these other people who Ms. Giuffre alleged abused her.

"She could have sued them and she did not. She waived her rights to sue them when she entered into the 2009 release agreement and accepted the money from Mr. Epstein. She didn't return that money when she decided to file this lawsuit."

Elsewhere, Kaplan responded abruptly to Prince Andrew's legal team's arguments in favor of throwing out the case.

Brettler argued Giuffre needed to provide more details of her allegations but the judge suggested there was no legal requirement to.

Brettler said: "Ms. Giuffre needs to lock herself into her story now. Not some time in the future after she conducts discovery and figures out where the chips may fall. She needs to allege today when he supposedly abused her.

"I'd like even a date, a month, we would settle for a year and all we have now is that she was supposedly 17 years old, it could have spanned over two calendar years. Ms. Giuffre doesn't articulate what supposedly happened to her at the hands of Prince Andrew."

Kaplan responded: "With all due respect Mr. Brettler that's not a dog that's going to hunt here. I'm sure you're as familiar with the rules of pleading as I am and she has no obligation to do that in the complaint, I'll tell you that straight out right now. It's not going to happen."

He said: "It was sexual intercourse. Involuntary sexual intercourse. There isn't any doubt about what that means, at least not since someone else was in the White House."