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Prince Andrew settles sex abuse suit with Virginia Giuffre for estimated $12M: source

Prince Andrew and Virginia Roberts Giuffre have reached a settlement in her sex abuse lawsuit against him — sparing potentially embarrassing details about the embattled royal from ever being made public.

The sum of the settlement will not be publicly disclosed, according to papers filed Tuesday in Manhattan federal court. But a source told The Post estimated total is $12 million.

Giuffre and Prince Andrew will file a stipulation to dismiss the case within the next month, according to the court papers, which were filed jointly by both parties.

In an unsigned letter submitted as an attachment to the settlement filing, Andrew said he accepts Giuffre has suffered as an “established victim” of sex abuse but does not admit any wrongdoing.

“Prince Andrew has never intended to malign Ms. Giuffre’s character, and he accepts that she has suffered both as an established victim of abuse and as a result of unfair public attacks,” the letter states.

“It is known that Jeffrey Epstein trafficked countless young girls over many years. Prince Andrew regrets his association with Epstein, and commends the bravery of Ms. Giuffre and other survivors in standing up for themselves and others,” it adds.

The statement claimed Andrew will fight against the “evils” of sex trafficking and that he’ll make a substantial donation to Giuffre’s charity for sex crime victims.

Prince Andrew and Virginia Giuffre in 2001. SDNY

“He pledges to demonstrate his regret for his association with Epstein by supporting the fight against the evils of sex trafficking, and by supporting its victims,” it said.

One of the most vocal Epstein accusers, Giuffre sued Andrew in August claiming the Duke of York had sex with her three times when she was a teen in London, New York and the US Virgin Islands.

Andrew — who was stripped of his military and royal titles in January — has long maintained his innocence.

Settling the case — which had the potential to unearth damaging details about the royal dubbed “Randy Andy” and bring shame to his famous family — is a solid move for Andrew, experts said.

“While his public image may never recover, it makes sense for him to resolve this case,” Sarah Krissoff, a former New York federal prosecutor who now works as a white-collar criminal defense attorney, told The Post in an email.

“The settlement will provide some measure of closure for both sides, and Prince Andrew will avoid having every detail of the alleged conduct – and perhaps other conduct not yet publicly known — aired.”

Krissoff added that Andrew had “little to gain by proceeding to discovery and potentially a trial.”

“By settling the case, he avoids being deposed and having others close to him be deposed,” she explained. “He also avoids having to provide extensive documentation to Ms. Giuffre.”

The confidential settlement was reached after Giuffre’s attorney David Boies said last month that he did not think she would be interested in a strictly financial settlement.

“A purely financial settlement is not anything I think she is interested in,” he told BBC News at the time.

Virginia Giuffre has settled with Prince Andrew before the start of their sex abuse trial. Tribune News Service via Getty I

It’s unclear how Andrew will pay for the undisclosed settlement — but the Telegraph said the Queen will fund part of it from her private Duchy of Lancaster estate.

Andrew receives some $323,000 a year from the Queen from her private funds and collects a pension from the UK Navy worth $26,000 a year, the Times of London reported.

But speculation has flown that Andrew sold his ski chalet in the Swiss Alps, worth the equivalent of $24 million, to help pay for the settlement, the Daily Mail reported.

“It looks like selling up was the only option for him to ensure he had the cash to pay his legal bills and fund a settlement,” a neighbor in Verbier told the outlet.

In a statement Monday, one of Giuffre’s attorneys, Sigrid McCawley, said she was pleased with the outcome.

“As a managing partner at a firm that has from its beginning acted upon the belief that the law should be marshaled to bring justice to the most vulnerable, I can say, without hesitation, that our representation of survivors upholds that tradition,” McCawley said.

The sum of the settlement between Giuffre and Prince Andrew will not be disclosed. REUTERS

Giuffre has long claimed she was a sex-trafficking victim of Epstein and his now-convicted madam Ghislaine Maxwell beginning when she was just 17 years old.

On one occasion, her suit alleged, she was forced to have sex with Andrew at Maxwell’s London townhouse and two other times.

“During this encounter, Epstein, Maxwell, and Prince Andrew forced Plaintiff, a child, to have sexual intercourse with Prince Andrew against her will,” the suit states.

In each of the three encounters, Giuffre claimed, she “feared death or physical injury to herself” if she did not comply with Maxwell and Epstein’s orders.

In January, Andrew lost his motion to dismiss his accuser’s suit, with a Manhattan judge ruling that the case could move to trial.

The duke had argued, in part, that a settlement agreement Giuffre inked with Epstein in 2009 barred her from bringing the civil suit against Andrew. The argument was shot down by Judge Lewis Kaplan.

Andrew has long denied the accusations made against him by Giuffre, including in a disastrous, televised interview with the BBC in 2019 — during which he made the bizarre claim that he couldn’t have abused her because he was unable to sweat.

Giuffre had previously recalled she remembered Andrew sweating on her as they danced at a London nightclub.

Giuffre claims in the suit that Prince Andrew had sexually abused her three times. AP

A photograph purportedly taken that night shows Andrew with his arm wrapped around the then-17-year-old, with Maxwell grinning in the background — but the Duke of York said in his BBC interview that he couldn’t be sure the photo is authentic.

Giuffre, who resides in Australia, did not testify at Maxwell’s highly publicized criminal trial in Manhattan last year, but prosecutors introduced evidence in the case that purported to show she had flown around the world with the couple on Epstein’s private jet.

Maxwell was convicted on five of six counts at the trial — but the verdict was thrown into question after a juror revealed in a number of press interviews that he had been sexually abused as child.

Maxwell’s attorneys have requested a new trial. A judge has not ruled on that.

Epstein died in a Lower Manhattan jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges. His death was ruled a suicide by the New York City Medical Examiner’s Office.