Will Meghan Markle testify against Prince Andrew in Virginia Giuffre sex trial case?
Prince Andrew faced a pre-trial conference last month after a sex abuse civil suit was brought against him by Virginia Robert Giuffre in August this year. She is one of the victims of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein who Andrew was allegedly friends with. Giuffre was forced to perform sex with the royal after being trafficked as a minor by Epstein to sexually satisfy his friends including the Britisher. David Boies, the attorney representing Giuffre may seek to depose Meghan Markle as part of the civil suit as she is someone who can be counted on "to tell the truth."
Boies told the Daily Beast that his team could depose a maximum of 12 third parties after the hearing on January 4 where district judge Lewis Kaplan will hear arguments from Prince Andrew's legal team and decide if the case needs to be dismissed or pursued further. In the event of this case making it past this hearing, both Giuffre and Andrew will have to give videotaped depositions. Andrew's ex-wife Sarah Ferguson was considered by Boies too but her place of residence makes her a much more complex subject than Markle who resides in the US, and the idea had to be dropped. He didn't seek the Queen too out of "respect and deference" and because of her age.
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Boies told Daily Beast that Markle is being considered to be deposed as she ticks all the boxes including the fact that she resides in the US. Boies added that she's closely known Andrew at least for a period of time and might have seen what he's done or might have heard people talking about his misdeeds. Lastly, "she is somebody who we can count on to tell the truth. She checks all three boxes," he says.
Boies said of Markle, an American national who is currently residing in the country and is obligated to co-operate that "she is one of the people we are considering". However, he said that they've not reached a firm decision about it. “We wouldn’t take a lot of those depositions. It would just be to see whether there are people close to [Andrew] who have relevant knowledge," he further added.
The outlet further questioned Boies if they were seeking to depose Prince Harry to which he said, "He would also be available for deposition as he is in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction of the U.S. courts. But my guess is that we will probably only have the opportunity to take 10 to 12 depositions so we have got to be careful about who we notice. We would not depose both Harry and Meghan, because we would not have the number of depositions to do that.”