Exposed! Prince Andrew 'Grope' Accuser Files Set to Be Released for Public View
Prince Andrew cannot catch a break, as his years-long friendship with deceased pedophile Jeffrey Epstein is making headlines again. The brother of King Charles III is the subject of a defamation case by Johanna Sjoberg, who claims the eighth in line to the British throne "groped" her while at a party on an Epstein property in March 2001. Starting in 2024, files from her defamation case will become available for public view thanks to a ruling by a U.S. judge.
The ruling will include papers detailing testimony and other details from 170 people who were associated with the late financier in some capacity, including 40 documents pertaining to Sjoberg. The files are all part of a wider defamation case by fellow Duke of York accuser Virginia Giuffre against Ghislaine Maxwell in 2015. Maxwell was instrumental in supplying Epstein with underage victims for various sexual activities, and she's currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for her crimes.
All individuals set to be named in the papers have 14 days to appeal the judge's decision, and the documents are predicted to appear sometime after New Year's Day.
Prince Andrew has long courted criticism for his associations with Epstein once the financier's crimes started to come to light during the 2000s. The royal prince met with and remained friends with the disgraced pedophile throughout that decade before claiming he severed all contact with him in 2010. Giuffre's claims against Andrew were revealed in April 2015 Florida court papers that stated the then-17-year-old was forced by Epstein to sleep with the Duke in 2001 when she was underage.
Giuffre reignited her accusations against Andrew in 2019 in the wake of Epstein's death in August of that year. After a disastrous BBC Newsnight interview in November, Andrew became public enemy number one in the British and world press due to his "weak answers" to interview questions.
The disgraced Duke returned his royal patronages and military titles to Queen Elizabeth II in early 2022 before reaching a financial settlement with Giuffre shortly afterward.
Andrew's reentry into the news cycle for all the wrong reasons follows a period of relative quiet in which many seemed to be on a quest to "rehabilitate" his public image.
"Andrew has taken his punishment, withdrawn from public life, and done whatever has been asked of him. He knows he has damaged the monarchy. So have Harry and Meghan," a friend of the disgraced Duke told an outlet in October.
They continued: "If you were Charles, would you rather have a problem that looks like Harry and Meghan or a problem that looks like Andrew? The difference is [Andrew] deeply regrets it, and it was not intentional, whereas Harry and Meghan deliberately set out to cause as much damage to Charles and Camilla as they could to sell books and TV shows. That's an entirely different matter."
Daily Express reported on the judge's orders.