Sexual assault

Court documents filed on Tuesday morning by counsel for Virginia (Roberts) Giuffre revealed she had settled her high-profile human trafficking case against Prince Andrew. Although the documents omit both an admission of guilt by Andrew and a disclosure of the settlement sum, the Telegraph asserts that the beleaguered prince will pay Giuffre an estimated £12 million ($16 million) to resolve her case under New York’s Child Victims Act, and that the money will come from his mother, Queen Elizabeth II. The parties informed the court that they had reached a “settlement in principle” and anticipated filing a stipulation of dismissal of the case within the next month.

The Duke of York is heading to a New York courthouse. US District Court Judge Lewis A. Kaplan ruled today that Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s lawsuit against Prince Andrew may proceed as a matter of law. Ms. Giuffre’s victory means the judge finds her claims legally cognizable. As the case moves into civil discovery, Ms. Giuffre must prove all the relevant facts she alleges to be true. Prince Andrew has denied all Ms. Giuffre’s claims. In a 2021 lawsuit filed in New York’s federal courts, Giuffre sued Andrew for committing battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

The Ghislaine Maxwell trial resumed today with the defense’s presentation of its case, beginning with a procedural loss for the Maxwell team. The judge rejected the defense’s unusual request to allow some of their witnesses to testify anonymously. Maxwell’s attorneys claimed three witnesses feared they “might get a lot of unwanted attention.” Judge Alison J. Nathan ruled that because the defense did not claim the witnesses were victims or sexual assault survivors, no special exemptions applied to the general rule that witnesses in federal court must be publicly identified.

Lies come in all shapes and sizes, colors, odors, textures and tastes. Some are only little white lies, but more often the accompanying adjective suggests something unpleasant. Damnable lies used to be the most condemned, but today the foulest of all perfidious, incarnadine, silken and sulfurous lies are Big Lies. Thus when New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg wants to reassure progressive voters that they can ignore the story about a ninth-grade girl who was raped (i.e. forcibly sodomized) in a girl’s restroom in a Loudoun County, Virginia school, she serves up her diversion under the title “The Right’s Big Lie About a Sexual Assault in Virginia.

Is Kellyanne Conway proof that patriarchy has no gender? That’s what the British journalist, Suzanne Moore, says in the Guardian today. She broods over Conway’s contention that she too was sexually abused once (is there anyone out there who wasn’t?) and considers whether she deserves a bit of empathy before concluding that, because Conway is gunning for Christine Blasey Ford, empathy would be wasted on her. Actually, it’s not just that Kellyanne Conway is pro-Brett Kavanaugh. She’s Not One of Us because ‘She is anti-abortion, and though a survivor of sexual assault, works for a man accused of multiple sexual assaults.’ By which she means Donald Trump.