Prince Andrew calls for trial by jury over sexual assault case

NEW YORK: Britain’s Prince Andrew’s lawyers announced Wednesday that their client is seeking a jury trial to clear himself of the sexual assault complaint he faces in New York.

“Prince Andrew is requesting a jury trial on all grounds for the proceedings established in the complaint,” his lawyer said in a note.

Prosecutor Victoria Joffrey alleges that she had sex with the prince when she was 17 years old, a minor under US law, after she met him through the late businessman Jeffrey Epstein, who was convicted of sexual abuse of underage girls.

Earlier this month, Prince Andrew was stripped of his military titles and charitable duties after Judge Lewis Kaplan rejected his plea for Joffrey’s case to be dismissed.

Joffrey, now 38, alleges that Andrew sexually assaulted her at the home of Epstein’s girlfriend, Ghilane Maxwell, in London in March 2001.

Lawyers for the abused American had asked her to hear the testimony of a woman who says she saw him in a London nightclub with a young girl when the events occurred, according to US court documents.

While Prince Andrew has so far failed to drop the civil complaint against him, Epstein died in prison by suicide in 2019.

However, his lawyers recently requested in an interrogation letter the complainant’s husband, Robert Joffrey, who also lives in Australia.

They also asked to hear from psychologist Judith Lightfoot regarding Virginia Joffrey’s announcement, while the prince’s lawyers estimate that the complainant “has memory problems.”