THE HIGH-FLYING lawyer poised to quiz Prince Andrew over his alleged sex attack on Virginia Giuffre will use a “seductive and beguiling style” to lay traps for the royal, a close friend has told The Sun.
Known as the “Great Inquisitor”, David Boies, 80, is expected to depose the Duke of York next month after the royal’s last-ditch attempt to get the civil case against him tossed failed last week.
4
4
Boies’ pal and eminent lawyer Ted Olson, 81, said the legal star will use his “near-photographic memory” to expose any weaknesses in Andrew’s version of events.
However the Prince is unlikely to feel like he is under attack because Boies is “tireless and seductive” and will know how to put him at ease, Olson said.
Seen by many as the greatest master at deposition in modern American justice, Olson added that Boies’ style is to “hammer away” at those he comes up against until they divulge damning testimony.
It comes amid a tumultuous few days for the royals as:
- It’s feared the Queen may never meet Lilibet if Harry and Meghan decide not to return for the Platinum Jubilee celebrations
- Meanwhile, Charles and Harry have been sharing ‘good-natured’ video calls – and the Prince of Wales is desperate to meet Lilibet
- But an expert says Meghan is unlikely to take Charles up on his invitation to stay because it’ll be too ‘awkward’
- The Royal Family is bracing for the release of Harry’s memoir this year
- Meghan has complained to the BBC following controversial doc The Princes and the Press
Olson, who served as United States Solicitor General for three years under President George W. Bush, said: “David has a brilliant, quick and incisive mind and a near-photographic memory.
Most read in The Sun
“He is a patient and a creative cross-examiner.
He has a seductive and beguiling style so that the interrogee can be led into traps that he or she does not see coming.
“If the witness thinks they see something coming and becomes evasive, David will exploit that and hammer – softly – away at the witness until the witness realizes there is no way out of the box canyon his or her answers have led them into.
“David will remember an answer a witness provides early in an examination and use that against the witness hours or even days later.”
Both Boies and Olson are considered pioneering powerhouse advocates who were key players in the legalization of gay marriage in the US.
And both were inspired by the hit 1950s and 1960s legal TV show Perry Mason, which starred Raymond Burr as a criminal defence lawyer who excels at hopeless cases.
Olson said: “David does this all spontaneously, but the Perry Mason show and others like it inspired David – and me – by the game, the process, the competition, the sport.
“We wanted to be like that. David has come to the point where he is even better because in real life it is much harder.”
Among the cases that built Boies reputation was the US government’s successful prosecution of Microsoft for its legal monopoly in the personal computer market in the 1990s.
His deposition of then-Microsoft CEO Bill Gates on behalf of the US Justice Department put the billionaire businessman on the back foot and was seen to have played a crucial role in his defeat.
But Boies also famously suffered defeat himself when he represented Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore as he unsuccessfully challenged President George W. Bush’s electoral victory in 2000.
Early in his career, he represented US broadcaster Mike Wallace in a libel case brought by General William Westmoreland, an American commander in the Vietnam War.
In more recent times, Boies has been at the centre of some of the most high-profile legal cases to rock America.
The father-of-six has represented the victims of late paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein and his recently convicted madam Ghislaine Maxwell, including Virginia Giuffre.
But he also worked with disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein in contract negotiations and recently-convicted fraudster Elizabeth Holmes and her infamous blood-testing startup Theranos.
He has said previously: “Part of people’s confidence in our justice system is that we give a just due process treatment to people we despise.
“People who have done acts that we despise.
“We, nevertheless, give them due process, fair trial, representation, presumption of innocence. And that’s true for people who do horrific things both in terms of violence and abuse.”
Away from the courtroom, Boies is known to be a huge tennis fan who enjoys attending the US Open.
Asked to describe his friend, Olson – a partner at Washington D.C legal firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher – said: “David is kind, gracious, charming, generous, has a quick and delightful sense of humour and is a terrific conversationalist.”
4
4
