Prince
Andrew
Prince
Andrew vehemently denies Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s claim that she was forced
to have sex with him.
Underage girl forced to have sex with Prince
Andrew, US court document claims
Jeffrey Epstein victim says orgy on late financier’s
island was attempt to blackmail prince
Matthew
Weaver
Fri 31 Jul
2020 17.03 BSTLast modified on Fri 31 Jul 2020 17.34 BST
The sex
offender Jeffrey Epstein allegedly tried to gather incriminating material
against Prince Andrew by forcing an underage girl to have sex with him,
according to newly released court documents.
The papers
released by a court in New York say the alleged encounter took place on the
late US financier’s private island in the US Virgin Islands. A document claims
Epstein instructed the girl, referred to as Jane Doe #3, to “give the prince
whatever he demanded and report back to him on the details of the sexual
abuse”.
Epstein
allegedly sexually trafficked the girl to powerful people to “ingratiate
himself with them for business, personal, political and financial gain, as well
as to obtain potential blackmail information”. They included “numerous
prominent American politicians, powerful business executives, foreign
presidents, a well-known prime minister, and other world leaders.”
The papers,
part of prior litigation, also contain the claim that Andrew tried to lobby the
US on behalf of Epstein to help secure a “favourable plea arrangement”.
The papers
are part of a 2015 civil court battle between Epstein and his former girlfriend
Ghislaine Maxwell, and Virginia Roberts Giuffre, now 36, who accused the couple
of sexual abuse. She also claimed she was forced to have sex with Prince
Andrew, which he vehemently denies.
It is not
clear from the court papers whether Jane Doe #3 is Giuffre.
The papers
were released after a judge rejected an attempt by Maxwell’s lawyers to keep
them secret. A friend of Prince Andrew said: “The US federal appeals court said
in 2019 these allegations should be treated with ‘extreme caution’. Allegations
are not the same as facts, which is the essential premise on which justice
works. Let’s see if these allegations stand up, because precious few about the
duke do – where’s the proof?”
On the
lobbying claim, the friend added: “This allegation is a straightforward
untruth. No ifs, no buts.”
Lawyers for
two other alleged victims in the 2015 civil case, referred to as Jane Doe #1
and #2, requested the release of documents showing the alleged lobbying by the
Prince.
They are
seeking “documents regarding Epstein’s lobbying efforts to persuade the
government to give him a more favourable plea arrangement and/or
non-prosecution agreement, including efforts on his behalf by Prince Andrew and
the former Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz”.
It is
claimed in the unsealed papers that an island orgy was one of three occasions
when Jane Doe #3 was forced to have sex with Andrew. The other locations were
Maxwell’s London flat and and in New York.
No precise
dates are given for the alleged incidents. But it is claimed Jane Doe #3 was
first approached by Maxwell in 1999, when she was 15. Epstein kept her as a
“sex slave” from about 1999 to 2002, before she escaped and fled to another
country, according to a document.
Similar allegations
about Prince Andrew having sex with an underage girl were ordered to be struck
from court records in 2015 in the civil case. At the time the judge did not
rule on the veracity of the claims.
Epstein
killed himself last summer while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
Maxwell was
arrested recently on federal charges that she recruited at least three girls,
including one as young as 14, for Epstein to sexually abuse in the 1990s.
Prosecutors said she also joined in the abuse. Maxwell is in jail awaiting
trial in New York.
Ghislaine Maxwell trained underage girls as sex
slaves, documents allege
Unsealed testimony from 2015 case reveals series of
claims about British socialite’s role in Epstein sex-trafficking ring
Victoria
Bekiempis
Fri 31 Jul
2020 10.22 BSTLast modified on Fri 31 Jul 2020 18.55 BST
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/31/ghislaine-maxwell-underage-girls-sex-jeffrey-epstein
Ghislaine
Maxwell sexually abused underage girls and joined Jeffrey Epstein in directing
Virginia Roberts Giuffre to be sexually abused by others, Giuffre claimed in a
cache of documents that has been unsealed in the US.
She
“trained me as a sex slave”, Giuffre is quoted as saying.
The
documents were part of now-settled civil litigation against the British
socialite and include claims about her alleged involvement in the
sex-trafficking scheme of Epstein, her longtime confidant and a convicted sex
offender.
The
documents stem from a 2015 civil action brought against Maxwell by Giuffre, who
has claimed Maxwell lured her into Epstein’s orbit as a teenager under the
guise of offering work as a masseuse.
She said
the couple subsequently pressured her into having sex with numerous rich or
notable men, including Prince Andrew, US politicians, wealthy entrepreneurs, a
famous scientist, and a fashion designer.
Maxwell and
all of the accused men have long denied those allegations.
The files
include personal emails between Epstein and Maxwell, as well as information
from a discussion between Giuffre and her lawyer.
“‘It is
your contention that ‘Ghislaine Maxwell had sex with underage girls virtually
every day when I was around her’, correct?” Giuffre was asked during a May 2016
deposition contained in this document cache.
“Yes.”
“All right.
With whom did Ghislaine Maxwell have sex in your presence?” she was asked.
“Well,
there’s a lot of girls that were involved. We weren’t on a first-name basis
with each other. I wouldn’t be able to give you lists of names of girls. It was
continuous,” Giuffre answered.
Shortly
after saying Epstein’s US Virgin Islands estate was “a place where orgies were
a constant thing that took place”, Giuffre said she “had to” perform oral sex
on Maxwell, in Epstein’s presence by the pool.
When asked
whom Maxwell directed her to have sex with, Giuffre said: “I’m going to
continue to tell you that they both directed me to do it. It was part of my
training. They both told me: ‘You’ve got tickets to go here. This is who you’re
meeting, and this is what you’re doing.’
“I’m trying
to tell you that they both did, Ghislaine and Jeffrey both directed me. They
both paid me and they both directed me,” Giuffre said when pressed.
“You have
to understand that Jeffrey and Ghislaine are joined hip by [the] hip, OK? So
they both trafficked me. Ghislaine brought me in for the purpose of being
trafficked. Jeffrey was just as a part of it as she was. She was just as a part
of it as he was,” Giuffre said. “They trafficked me to many people. And to be
honest, there is people I could name, and then there’s people that are just a
blur. There was so much happening.
“Ghislaine
Maxwell brought me into the sex-trafficking industry. She’s the one who abused
me on a regular basis. She’s the one that procured me, told me what to do,
trained me as a sex slave, abused me physically, abused me mentally,” Giuffre
also said.
Many
documents in this case have been subject to an intense legal battle. Maxwell’s
attorneys in the civil suit had argued to keep many records under seal,
maintaining previously that “this series of pleadings concerns [attempts] to
compel Ms Maxwell to answer intrusive questions about her sex life”.
The documents,
they argued, are “extremely personal, confidential and subject to considerable
abuse by the media”.
The
Manhattan federal court judge Loretta Preska ruled on 23 July that they should
be unsealed, however, saying: “The court finds that the countervailing
interests identified fail to rebut the presumption of public access.”
Documents
involving Maxwell’s deposition have not yet been released pending an appeal by
lawyers for Maxwell.
Epstein
killed himself last summer while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges.
In a
separate case, federal authorities arrested Maxwell on 2 July and charged her
for allegedly participating in Epstein’s sex-trafficking. Maxwell, the daughter
of the late publisher Robert Maxwell, pleaded not guilty on 14 July, and is in
custody awaiting trial in New York.
Maxwell has
repeatedly denied wrongdoing. Her lawyers have said she “vigorously denies the
charges” and is “entitled to the presumption of innocence”.
Giuffre has
been interviewed by the FBI, but no charges were brought based on her
allegations and she is not one of the three alleged victims in the current
criminal case against Maxwell.
The
documents released on Thursday help shed light on Maxwell and Epstein’s
relationship. In one of the personal emails between Epstein and Maxwell,
Epstein wrote on 25 January 2015: “You have done nothing wrong and i woudl
[sic] urge you to start acting like it. “Go outside, head high, not as an
esacping[sic] convict. go to parties. deal with it.”
The
exchange followed a request from Maxwell, who was romantically linked to
Epstein, to be distanced from his dating life.
These
emails also appear to contradict her lawyers’ claim that Maxwell had not had
contact with Epstein for more than 10 years, which they said in making an
argument for bail.
Some of the
documents also relate to previous claims of Giuffre, such as the former US
president Bill Clinton riding on Epstein’s plane, and allegations about the
lawyer Alan Dershowitz. Dershowitz, who had worked as Epstein’s attorney, has
repeatedly denied misconduct.
“I sought
release of all the documents because they prove that all the allegations
against me are false,” Dershowitz said in an email to the Guardian when asked
for comment.
During
questioning about Bill Clinton, the documents show Giuffre said she saw the
former president on Epstein’s island. Representatives for Clinton did not
immediately respond to a request for comment.
Clinton has
distanced himself from Epstein, and in a 2019 statement a spokesperson said:
“President Clinton knows nothing about the terrible crimes Jeffrey Epstein
pleaded guilty to in Florida some years ago, or those with which he has been
recently charged in New York.”
The
documents also show that Giuffre was asked in an interview whether Epstein ever
bragged about the age of any girls with whom he had sexual relations. “Yes, he
did. He did all the time,” she said. “The worst one that I heard from his own
mouth [were these] pretty 12-year-old girls he had flown in for his birthday.
It was a surprise birthday gift from one of his friends and they were from
France,” she alleged.
Epstein
told Giuffre powerful people owed him favours, according to the documents.
“Lots of people owed him favors from what he told me … That’s why I believe he
does so many favors in the first place.”
Giuffre was
also asked whether Prince Andrew – whom she has claimed she had sex with as a
teenager at Epstein’s behest – would have information about the financier.
“He would
know a lot of the truth,” she said.
In 2015, a
judge struck out the material concerning Prince Andrew as “immaterial and
impertinent”. He has vehemently denied allegations of misconduct.
Maxwell met
Giuffre at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in south Florida, where the then
teenager was working as a locker-room attendant.
In the
civil lawsuit, which has since been settled, Giuffre claimed that Maxwell had
defamed her by stating that she was a liar for accusing Epstein and Maxwell of
sexual impropriety.
An
extensive collection of documents in this case was also unsealed in August 2019
that featured claims, since denied, that world leaders participated in
Epstein’s alleged sex ring. These filings were disclosed shortly after
Epstein’s arrest last July.
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