His lawyers claim questioning Virginia Giuffre, nee Roberts, under oath would show she is “domiciled” in Australia instead of Colorado, as she says – and so a New York court may have no jurisdiction, The Sun reports. The 38-year-old, who alleges Andrew abused her three times when she was 17, is currently staying in Australia with her husband Robert and their three children.The Duke’s lawyer, Andrew Brettler, said she was living in a $A1.86 million home in Perth when she filed her lawsuit and had spent less than two years in the US since moving to Australia in 2002. In a lawsuit filed in August, Ms Giuffre claimed the Prince abused her on multiple occasions in 2001. Andrew strongly denies her allegations. The Prince’s lawyers in October asked Judge Lewis A. Kaplan to throw out the lawsuit, saying he never sexually abused or assaulted her.They also accused Ms Giuffre of suing the Duke to achieve another payday at his expense and at the expense of those closest to him. The lawyers acknowledged that Ms Giuffre may well be a victim of sexual abuse by financier Jeffrey Epstein, who killed himself in 2019 while awaiting a sex trafficking trial.Last month, Judge Kaplan said a trial in Ms Giuffre’s lawsuit against Andrew could occur between September and December 2022.But the Prince‘s lawyers say the new information about her residence should result in the suspension of any further progress in the lawsuit toward trial until it is settled whether she can sue Andrew in the US.They asked the judge to order Ms Giuffre to respond to written legal requests about her residency and submit to a two-hour deposition on the issue.A lawyer for Ms Giuffre, Sigrid McCawley, called the request to toss out the case “just another in a series of tired attempts by Prince Andrew to duck and dodge the legal merits of the case brought against him”.NED-1890-Prince-Andrew-on-Epstein-scandalThe Prince’s lawyers wrote that Ms Giuffre has an Australian driver’s license and was living in a $1.86 million home in Perth, Western Australia.“Even if Ms Giuffre’s Australian domicile could not be established as early as October 2015, there can be no real dispute that she was permanently living there with an intent to remain there as of 2019 still two years before she filed this action against Prince Andrew,” the lawyers wrote.They said the timing of Ms Giuffre’s registration to vote in Colorado prior to filing the lawsuit against the Prince appears to be a “calculated” move in an effort to support her specious claim of citizenship in Colorado despite having moved to Australia at least a year earlier.A hearing on January 4 is set to determine whether the case against Andrew, 61, can proceed.This article originally appeared on The Sun and was reproduced with permission
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