The lawyer for the alleged Jeffrey Epstein victim suing Prince Andrew said they may depose Meghan Markle if the lawsuit goes to trial.
In August, Virginia Guiffre filed a lawsuit against Prince Andrew, a longtime friend of Epstein, for alleged sexual assault when she was 17. Giuffre’s suit seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.
Prince Andrew’s legal team has a Jan. 4 motion to dismiss the lawsuit; if that is unsuccessful and the suit goes to trial, Guiffre’s lawyer David Boies told the Daily Beast that they might call Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, to the stand because of the “important knowledge” she has into the inner workings of the Royal Family.
“One; she is in the U.S. so we have jurisdiction over her. Two; she is somebody who obviously, at least for a period of time, was a close associate of Prince Andrew and hence is in a position to perhaps have seen what he did, and perhaps if not to have seen what he did to have heard people talk about it,” Boies said. “Three; she is somebody who we can count on to tell the truth. She checks all three boxes.”
Andrew’s ex-wife Sarah Ferguson may also be deposed, Boies said, but that becomes complicated because the British courts would need to approve that request. In total, Guiffre’s lawyers will depose approximately a dozen people if the lawsuit enters the discovery phase, with both Guiffre and Andrew set to give video depositions under oath.
Guiffre’s lawsuit accuses Andrew of sexually abusing her multiple times while she was a minor.
“The powerful and rich are not exempt from being held responsible for their actions. I hope that other victims will see that it is possible not to live in silence and fear, but to reclaim one’s life by speaking out and demanding justice,” Giuffre said in a statement in August. “I did not come to this decision lightly. As a mother and a wife, my family comes first — and I know that this action will subject me to further attacks by Prince Andrew and his surrogates — but I knew if I did not pursue this action, I would be letting them and victims everywhere down.”
From Rolling Stone US
