Ghislaine Maxwell ’won’t betray’ Prince Andrew over ‘sex slave’ allegations says former friend
Ghislaine Maxwell has been described as “fiercely loyal” to Prince Andrew by a former friend who says the disgraced socialite “will protect him to the last” during her sex abuse trial.
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As Ghislaine Maxwell awaits trial over the Jeffrey Epstein sex abuse scandal, many wonder what she will reveal about Prince Andrew’s alleged liaison with ‘sex slave’ Virginia Roberts and others.
In a bombshell interview with the Sun, the fallen socialite’s former friend, Christopher Mason, says Maxwell will not betray the beleaguered Prince, who vehemently denies the allegations against him.
“Prince Andrew and Ghislaine were always fiercely loyal to each other and she wouldn’t give him up,” Mr Mason said.
“I think she’ll still have his back and will protect him to the last.
“I don’t think US prosecutors would have much of an appetite for shaming a British prince, but his refusal to co-operate with their inquiries may spur their determination to exert maximum pressure on Ghislaine to turn on him.”
British journalist Mason, who is based in New York, became a close friend of alleged pimp Maxwell after they met in 1989 and says her connection to powerful men, including Prince Andrew, meant she was the perfect match for social climber Epstein.
As a couple they hobnobbed with New York and Washington’s rich and powerful.
“Jeffrey was supremely ambitious but he was never a cocktail party kind of guy,” says Mason. “He was only interested in hanging out with powerful people.”
Although he only met Prince Andrew once, Mason says he was well aware of Maxwell’s dubious friendship with the royal.
“I met them both on one occasion when they were walking down Madison Avenue, and he told me he was staying at Epstein’s vast New York house,” he says.
“It seemed natural that, of course, if Prince Andrew was in New York he would be hanging out with Ghislaine Maxwell because she cultivated powerful and socially prominent people.
“It was also the perfect instance of the kind of people Jeffrey was hanging out with.”
FORMER MODEL: FRIEND ORDERED TO HAVE SEX WITH ANDREW
Meanwhile, a former model has alleged that her friend had sex with Prince Andrew on the orders of late paedophile Epstein.
Lisa Phillips, 42, said she then confronted the billionaire — and he chillingly told her: “It’s nice to have things on people.”
Her bombshell claims will be broadcast on British TV on Tuesday night (local time) in the final instalment of the four-part documentary, Surviving Jeffrey Epstein, reports The Sun.
The Sun reportedly spoke to her friend, who was in her early 20s at the time, and she allegedly declined to comment.
But Phillips reportedly told The Sun: “My friend was very upset. She was crying.”
There is no suggestion that Prince Andrew knew of Epstein’s demand or was involved in any non-consensual sex. And last night sources close to him branded the allegation “baseless”.
Ex-model Phillips, who now runs an LA modelling firm, first met Epstein after a Caribbean photo shoot in 2000. He invited her and another friend to his island, Little St James.
She recalled: “I found Jeffrey very charming and he seemed really nice. I had mentioned I had lived in England and he said, ‘Oh, would you like to meet a prince?’.
“This man walked up and I recognised him as Prince Andrew. He was very nice. It was very brief.”
Phillips told the outlet she saw nothing untoward on the island and over the next few years met with Epstein at charity events, parties and Broadway shows.
She added: “He always wanted to meet friends of mine. He loved young women but none of us suspected he liked underage girls.”
Phillips said in 2004 the friend confided about the alleged incident at Epstein’s New York townhouse.
“She told me Jeffrey told her to go into a bedroom and have sex with Prince Andrew. She said Andrew had sex with her, and left the room. I think she was confused by Jeffrey — manipulated by him. She felt like she had to do it,” Phillps claimed.
“That’s why she was so angry, so upset. She thought they had a different relationship.”
A source close to Prince Andrew reportedly told The Sun: “Unsourced, unverified, unsubstantiated claims, regurgitated on third-hand hearsay with no evidence — as an allegation it doesn’t bear any examination.
“We look forward to seeing the evidence”
MAXWELL SEX FILES WILL LET ‘CAT OUT OF THE BAG’
Meanwhile, Ghislaine Maxwell’s chance of a fair trial will be impossible if a deposition she gave four years ago about her sex life is made public — which will “let the cat out of the bag,” her lawyers argued in a new court filing.
The lawyers for Maxwell made the argument in a filing last week in New York with the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, urging the court to overturn a judge’s ruling that the material be unsealed.
They argued Maxwell, 58, gave the deposition after it was agreed that it would remain confidential — and that making it public now would infringe on her right to a fair trial due to the media frenzy and negative publicity it could generate.
“If the unsealing order goes into effect, it will forever let the cat out of the bag,” the court papers state, according to the New York Post.
“The government has indicted Ghislaine Maxwell. The media have all but convicted her,” it continued.
The judge who ordered the deposition unsealed, the lawyers added, also did not give “adequate weight” to Maxwell’s privacy.
If the material is unsealed, intimate and sensitive material about Maxwell will “spread like wildfire across the internet,” they wrote.
The deposition includes statements Maxwell made about “consensual, and intimate conduct with other adults,” according to previously filed court documents.
Maxwell gave the deposition in the civil defamation case brought against her by Jeffrey Epstein accuser Virginia Roberts Giuffre.
Maxwell has since been criminally charged with procuring underage girls for Epstein to abuse and for lying under oath in the Giuffre case. She’s pleaded not guilty.
Her trial in the case is scheduled to begin mid next year.
CLINTON ‘SPENT TIME’ WITH WOMEN ON ISLAND
It has also been alleged that former US President Bill Clinton spent time on Epstein’s private island reportedly flirting with two women before vanishing with them both, it’s claimed.
The shock allegation came from Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who claims she was once the globetrotting teenage “sex slave” of Epstein who died in 2019.
She now lives in Australia.
She released a manuscript just hours before Epstein’s death last August, which added to more than 2000 documents of a lawsuit pending against the former financier and his high-profile friends.
In her statement she claimed the former US president joined her, Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein and two other women from New York for dinner.
She claims he teased the women with “playful pokes” and “brassy comments” before leaving with them at the end of the night.
“Strolling into the darkness with two beautiful girls around either arm, Bill seemed content to retire for the evening,” Ms Giuffre wrote.
Mr Clinton has denied any close relationship with Epstein, instead linking their contact to aid work in the developing world.
He said he knew nothing about Epstein’s crimes.
Mr Clinton’s office conceded that the former president had taken a total of four trips on Epstein’s private plane: one to Europe, one to Asia, and two to Africa.
But logs obtained by Fox News claimed to show the former president took at least 26 trips aboard Epstein’s Boeing 727 from 2001 to 2003.
The aircraft was grimly nicknamed the “Lolita Express”.
Investigators last year scoured the billionaire’s private US Virgin Island following allegations underage girls were used as sex slaves and abused inside a bizarre temple.
Footage showed a large group of FBI officers arriving at the pier of Little St James and accessing the disgraced financier’s property with golf buggies.
Epstein – who was awaiting trial on child sex abuse charges – died after apparently hanging himself in his New York jail cell in August 2019.
He died hours after the legal documents were unsealed by a US court, which contained lurid allegations against him and his former girlfriend and alleged “madam” Ghislaine Maxwell.
US Attorney-General Bill Barr said the probe into Epstein would continue following his death and that his alleged accomplices “should not rest easy.”
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Originally published as Ghislaine Maxwell ’won’t betray’ Prince Andrew over ‘sex slave’ allegations says former friend