PRINCE Andrew’s multi-million-pound settlement paid to his sex abuse accuser has been frozen in the wake of her suicide, The Sun can reveal.
The former Duke of York reportedly settled an out-of-court agreement with Virginia Giuffre for £12 million in 2022, a sum now intertwined with a dispute concerning her extensive estate.
Her estranged husband, Robert Giuffre, remains her next of kin despite the couple’s bitter split after 22 years’ marriage.
But her US-based family are determined to prevent him from getting a single penny and are preparing a legal challenge to contest his claim.
In a statement, they said: “Virginia was able to amass settlements, but through this tragedy, funds and estates can take years to settle.”
Ms Giuffre, 41, was also paid £375,000 by Prince Andrew’s paedophile pal Jeffrey Epstein in a 2009 out-of-court settlement.
She claimed billionaire Epstein sex trafficked her to the Duke of York on three separate occasions — twice when she was 17.
Andrew denied the allegations but paid out to avoid a court battle.
Virginia was found dead at home last month.
Who was Virginia Giuffre?
Virginia Roberts, who later became known as Virginia Giuffre, was a 41-year-old American-Australian activist and a notable victim of Jeffrey Epstein’s notorious sex trafficking operation.
She made claims against Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, as well as Brit socialite Ghislaine Maxwell – Jeffrey Epstein’s ex-lover.
In legal filings, Giuffre claimed that she was recruited by Maxwell, the 63-year-old offspring of disgraced business magnate Robert Maxwell, to serve as a teenage “sex slave” for Epstein.
She released a manuscript just hours before Epstein’s death, which added to more than 2,000 documents of a lawsuit pending against the former financier and his pals.
The legal documents were released in a defamation case involving Giuffre, who has claimed in court documents that Prince Andrew slept with her three times.
In 2019, Virginia Roberts claimed that she had sex with Prince Andrew in a toilet when she was 17, after a night where he had allegedly been plying her with vodka in a posh London club.
On February 15, 2022, it was announced that Prince Andrew settled the lawsuit – sparing him a humiliating court battle.
