Judge: Prince Andrew sex lawsuit trial likely in late 2022
Associated PressNEW YORK — An American woman’s claims that Britain’s Prince Andrew sexually abused her when she was 17 will probably be tried in a New York court late next year, if they survive a legal challenge, a judge said Wednesday. They said the prince never abused Giuffre and accused her of seeking “another payday” at Andrew’s expense. Maxwell’s lawyer on Wednesday again asked a court to free her on bail and likened her treatment in a federal jail in New York to what was experienced by the fictional character Hannibal Lecter in the film “Silence of the Lambs.” Attorney Bobbi Sternheim said in a letter to the judge that although Maxwell, 59, is not being kept in a cage or forced to wear a plastic face guard as Lecter was, the conditions of detention are “reprehensible.” Sternheim said surveillance of Maxwell at the jail was “disturbing and invasive.” U.S. District Judge Alison J. Nathan has thrice before rejected Maxwell’s application to be released, even after she offered to post millions of dollars in bail, be guarded around the clock, wear an ankle bracelet and renounce her citizenship in England and France. In her renewed request for bail, Sternheim said Maxwell has been subjected to physical and emotional abuse by jail guards in a facility where it is difficult to prepare for trial amid unsanitary living conditions, insufficient nutrition and sleep deprivation as guards shine a light into her cell every 15 minutes as she sleeps.