Buckingham Palace is strongly coming to the defense of PrinceAndrew, 54, a second time this week. In recent court documents pertaining tobillionaire Jeffrey Epstein, Queen Elizabeth’s second eldest son, who is fifth in line to the throne, has beenaccused of having sex with a teenager.
In the motion, the woman mentioned only as “Jane Doe 3”claims that Jeffrey loaned her out to other wealthy and powerful men thatincluded Andrew. The then 17-year-old states that she had sex with the Duke ofYork in London, New York and Jeffrey’s private island in the U.S. VirginIslands between 1999 and 2002.
A Palace spokesperson,however, has “emphatically denied” the Duke’s involvement. The Palacecontinued, “The allegations made are falseand without any foundation."
This statement followsthe initial forceful response from the Palace when the papers were first madepublic: "This relates to long-running andongoing civil proceedings in the United States to which the Duke of York is nota party. As such we would not comment in detail, however, for the avoidance ofdoubt, any suggestion of impropriety with underage minors is categoricallyuntrue."
On Sunday, lawyer Paul Cassell released this statement on behalf of his client, "Jane Doe 3," who is now 30 years old: "I am looking forward to vindicating my rights as an innocent victimand pursuing all available recourse. It appears that I am now being unjustlyvictimized again. These types of aggressive attacks on meare exactly the reason why sexual abuse victims typically remain silent and thereason why I did for a long time. That trend should change. I'm not going to bebullied back into silence."
For now, Prince Andrew isset to return to the United Kingdom from his vacation at Swiss ski resortVerbier, where he has been spending time with ex-wife Sarah Ferguson anddaughter Princess Eugenie.