Prince Andrew's Lawyer Seeks Stop In US Because Prosecutor "Lives In Australia"
Prince Andrew's lawyer has requested that the US civil lawsuit against the royal for alleged sexual assault be stopped because his accuser is "effectively domiciled in Australia".
Virginia Giuffre is suing the queen's son for assaulting her when she was a teenager. Andrew strongly denies the allegation.
His attorney, Andrew B Brettler, said in documents filed with the District Court in southern New York on Tuesday that the case should be stayed until "the question of jurisdiction in the matter is adjudicated." .
He writes: “Recently uncovered evidence suggests that the court has no jurisdiction over this action because actress Virginia L Giuffre cannot meet the diversity jurisdictional elements.
“Nevertheless, in her complaint, Mrs. Giuffre claims to be a citizen of the State of Colorado; the evidence shows that she is in fact domiciled in Australia, where she has lived for all but two for the past 19 years ”.
He continued: 'It is not disputed that at the time she brought this action Mrs Giuffre had an Australian driver's license and was living in a house worth AU $ 1.9 million (US $ 1 million Americans) in Perth, Western Australia, where she and her husband raised their three children.
“In reality, Ms. Giuffre's ties to Colorado are very limited. He hadn't lived there for at least 2019 - about two years before he took that legal action against Prince Andrew - and potentially, according to his own testimony, not since October 2015. his mother and his mailing address her stepfather.
"In view of the apparent incompetence in matters of diversity, Prince Andrew respectfully requests the court to order Ms Giuffre to respond to targeted written interrogation requests relating to her home and to submit to a deposition in a two-hour deadline limited to the question of his domicile, ”he wrote