I always have believed that when two parties settle out of court in a legal dispute in which one party accuses the other of doing something nasty or illegal, that the accused is — in a manner of speaking — acknowledging that he or she has done wrong.
So it is that Prince Andrew, son of Queen Elizabeth II, has agreed to pay a woman a hefty sum of money after she accused him of sexual misconduct with her. According to Reuters: The settlement by the 61-year-old Duke of York includes an undisclosed payment to Virginia Giuffre, a woman who had accused him of sexually abusing her when she was a teenager. The settlement, revealed on Tuesday in a Manhattan court filing, said he had never intended to malign her character.
No way back for Prince Andrew after abuse settlement, royal watchers say (msn.com)
Well, I am going out on a limb here with this observation, but it appears to me that Prince Andrew’s time as a public member of the British royal family has come to a halt. Guiffre accused Andrew of having sex with her as part of some sex orgy orchestrated by Jeffrey Epstein, the hideous sex trafficker.
Her Majesty the Queen already has stripped her son of his military rank and his standing as a spokesman for assorted charitable causes. Why did she do that? My hunch is that QEII believed the accusation leveled against Andrew. So, she acted proactively.
Now comes the settlement. Andrew must not have wanted this matter to go to trial for reasons that seem quite clear: He didn’t want any public testimony that details what he allegedly did to/with this young woman.
He denies ever meeting her. Oh, but wait! There’s that picture of the two of them; in the background is Ghislaine Maxwell, former girlfriend of the late Jeffrey Epstein, who hanged himself in a New York City jail cell in 2019.
Goodbye, Prince Andrew. Your 15 minutes of fame have expired.