Brit couple claims they saw Prince Andrew leave restaurant with “three young women” after partying with Ghislaine Maxwell
A couple who spent time with Ghislaine Maxwell in New York has told of their memories of their shock at seeing the extravagant and “strange” lifestyle she and her friends lived.
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A British couple has claimed they saw Prince Andrew leaving a restaurant with “three young, blonde women” after partying with the disgraced former socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, who is now being held in jail awaiting trial on sex charges.
The couple spoke of their “very strange” experience when they stayed with Maxwell for a few days in New York - being shocked by her extravagant lifestyle.
They revealed their encounter with Prince Andrew as allegations continue to emerge about his links to Maxwell and her former boyfriend, the paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.
They told The Sun they saw Prince Andrew attend a party which was thrown by Maxwell at her lavish townhouse in Manhattan.
It is claimed also among the guests was a two-time Oscar winner - and the party played virtual games of tennis on a huge movie screen in Maxwell’s basement.
And then the following night the couple went to dine at a neighbourhood restaurant and were told Andrew would be joining them.
“I remember seeing him sitting at a table at the far end with these three young blonde women when we walked in,” the source told The Sunday Times.
“He immediately got up, I imagined to join us, but instead he said goodbye and left with them in tow.
“It was all very strange.”
Epstein and Maxwell are alleged to have been at the centre of a sex trafficking ring which lured in girls for the billionaire to abuse. Maxwell has denied the allegations.
Prince Andrew is known to have for a time been friends with both of them, and is accused of sleeping with a 17-year-old sex slave at Maxwell’s house in London.
The Duke of York strongly denies any allegations against him and said he had no knowledge of any wrongdoing while friends with Maxwell and Epstein.
Maxwell is believed to be the one who introduced Prince Andrew to Epstein, with her and the Duke already being friends from her time in the UK.
The Prince has admitted inviting Epstein to Windsor Castle and Sandringham in 2000 but said “remember that it was his girlfriend who was the key element in this” - insisting the financier was a “plus one” for Maxwell.
The Duke has been facing pressure to co-operate with authorities in the probe into Epstein and Maxwell, but his team claim he has repeatedly offered to aid prosecutors.
The couple who visited Maxwell in New York were stunned by how lavish her lifestyle was when they were shown her enormous townhouse.
The wife said: “My first thought was, how did she afford this?
“I asked her about her work and she was adamant that she’d earned it all herself, that it was her money.
“I tried to get to the bottom of it, but she was quite vague.”
Maxwell is the daughter of disgraced newspaper mogul Robert Maxwell, who died in 1991 when he fell from his yacht The Lady Ghislaine.
Her finances have come under scrutiny since her arrest, with it claimed she had at least $A33 million in up to 15 bank accounts when she was detained - with prosecutors describing her cash as “opaque”.
She quickly moved to New York after her father’s death - and at some point met Epstein, with claims the two were for sometime romantically linked.
One source speculated that Epstein actually knew Maxwell’s dad and may have been implicated in the pension scam that netted him hundreds of millions.
The source said: “I couldn’t work out at first how, the second Ghislaine landed in New York, she was all of a sudden — overnight really — very chummy with Jeffrey.
“Then he started spending on a different level, suddenly buying these extraordinary townhouses.”
However, it is also speculated that Epstein and Maxwell may have never been in a romantic relationship.
The source suggested their relationship had actually been “business arrangement from day one” and had been about money.
“For a start he would never have been attracted to her. We know the kind of girls he liked,” the source said.
“Also, why would she have been so interested in procuring girls for him? No girlfriend does that.”
Epstein and Maxwell are known to have been regulars in high society - being pictured with numerous celebrities at parties and functions.
The financier rubbed shoulders with the world’s elite, hiding in plain sight while being a sordid sex fiend behind closed doors.
He killed himself last August while awaiting trial for sex crimes, and now Maxwell is in jail preparing for her day in front of a judge.
Maxwell is accused of being his “pimp” or “madam” who would procure girls for him to abuse - with victims claiming they would be duped as she claimed she was recruiting models of masseurs.
GHISLAINE’S LAWYERS TRY TO HIDE ‘SENSITIVE EVIDENCE’
Defence lawyers for alleged Jeffrey Epstein madam Ghislaine Maxwell want to hide from the public sensitive evidence ahead of her trial — including any nude photos and sexualised videos that will be marked “highly confidential,” according to court documents.
In a proposed protective order, Maxwell’s lawyers detailed the materials they believe should be kept out of public view and filed under seal in the Manhattan federal court case.
This included the “highly confidential” information, which they said should not be “disseminated, transmitted, or otherwise copied.”
“Highly Confidential Information contains nude, partially-nude, or otherwise sexualised images, videos, or other depictions of individuals,” the court papers state.
Maxwell’s attorneys and prosecutors had been working together to determine what discovery materials should be made public — and only disagreed on two details, according to the filing.
One point they couldn’t agree on is whether Maxwell’s defence attorneys should be allowed to disclose the identities of victims mentioned in the discovery material who have already spoken on the record or to the media.
“The government’s proposed restriction is therefore ‘broader than necessary’ to protect the privacy interests of these individuals who have already chosen to self-identify, and will hinder the defence’s ability to conduct further factual investigation, prepare witnesses for trial, and advocate on Ms Maxwell’s behalf,” her attorneys wrote.
The judge will need to approve which documents are kept from public eyes.
Maxwell was arrested earlier this month on a on a six-count indictment for allegedly procuring girls for Epstein to abuse and then lying about it under oath.
She’d been hiding out in a sprawling New Hampshire mansion for a year after Epstein killed himself in a Lower Manhattan jail cell while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
PRINCE ANDREW SHOULD BE ‘VERY CONCERNED’: LAWYER
Prince Andrew has been told he should be “very concerned” after a judge ruled that court papers detailing Ghislaine Maxwell’s sex life should be unsealed after being locked away for years.
Former socialite Maxwell wanted to prevent the release of papers from a 2015 lawsuit related to her sex life and relationship with billionaire paedophile Jeffrey Epstein and his associates.
Epstein committed suicide in a Manhattan jail last year.
Judge Loretta Preska ruled the papers should be unsealed within a week and Maxwell’s lawyers now have seven days to launch an emergency appeal.
The names of two mysterious “John Does” will also be revealed if and when the documents are unsealed.
Maxwell is currently awaiting trial on accusations that she played a central role in prolific child abuse carried out by her former boyfriend Epstein.
Lisa Bloom, who is representing some of Epstein’s victims, told the Daily Mirror: “Unsealing of the Maxwell documents is a positive step. Secrecy favours predators. Transparency helps victims.
“Anyone who was associated with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell should be very concerned.
“In particular, Prince Andrew should get ahead of this by co-operating with investigators as he promised to do months ago.”
The documents formed part of a defamation lawsuit brought against Maxwell in 2015 by Epstein accuser Virginia Roberts Giuffre.
Roberts has alleged a litany of abuse by Epstein, including that she was trafficked for sex with Prince Andrew in 2001, a claim the prince has “vehemently” denied.
Roberts brought a libel case after Maxwell accused her of lying.
The case was settled in 2017 before it reached trial but, while more than 2000 pages of evidence were released, around 900 court filings remained under seal or redacted.
Roberts asked for some of them to be released as part of separate civil lawsuits against Maxwell and lawyer Alan Dershowitz.
Numerous women have alleged that Maxwell helped to recruit and groom them before they were abused by Epstein as minors.
At least two have also alleged that Maxwell participated in the abuse herself.
She was arrested at a New Hampshire property at the start of this month, and last week was denied bail after prosecutors successfully argued that she was a flight risk.
She is scheduled to stand trial in July 2021, and faces 35 years jail if convicted.
‘SEX FILE’ UNSEALED BY JUDGE
A federal judge has unsealed a trove of records related to the sex life of Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell — but granted her legal team a stay on the release so they can appeal.
According to the New York Post, Judge Loretta Preska delivered the ruling via video hearing in the case, granting Maxwell’s lawyer Lauren Menninger one week to file an emergency motion with the Second Circuit Court of Appeals to challenge the decision.
Maxwell, who has been fighting the release, was not on the call.
“The court finds that any minor embarrassment or annoyance resulting from the disclosure of Miss Maxwell’s mostly non-testimony about behaviour that has been widely reported in the press is far outweighed by the presumption of public access,” Judge Preska stated during the hearing.
The secret documents relate to a seven-hour, 418-page deposition Maxwell gave as part of a now-settled defamation lawsuit filed against her in 2015 by Virginia Giuffre and to emails between Maxwell and Epstein.
Ms Giuffre sued the British socialite for defamation after Maxwell publicly stated that Ms Giuffre had made up the sexual abuse allegations against her and Epstein.
Maxwell, Epstein’s former lover, has been accused of recruiting teen girls for the paedophile — including Ms Giuffre when she was 16.
Maxwell is being held without bail on a six-count federal indictment charging her with grooming three underage girls to be sexually abused by her and Epstein.
She denies all allegations of sexual misconduct made against her.
Ms Roberts sued Maxwell for libel but hundreds of pages of documents relating to the case have been sealed for years.
She has asked for them to be released as part of separate civil lawsuits against Maxwell and lawyer Alan Dershowitz.
Judge Loretta Preska will decide whether or not to let the files become public on Thursday London time, the Daily Mail said. Maxwell remains in jail after being denied bail.
“The subject matter of these is extremely personal, confidential and subject to considerable abuse by the media,” Maxwell’s lawyers said.
“Courts must exercise their supervisory power over their own records and files to ensure they are not used to gratify private spite or promote public scandal.”
The secret evidence could reportedly also include further allegations about the Duke of York’s involvement with Epstein and Maxwell, who Prince Andrew reportedly regards as a close friend
Ms Roberts, who also uses her married name Giuffre, has previously claimed she was forced to have sex with Prince Andrew three times in 2001 and 2002, beginning when she was 17.
She alleges she was introduced to the prince by Epstein and Ms Maxwell, who was then the disgraced US financier’s girlfriend. Prince Andrew strenuously denies the claims.
Ms Roberts, who now lives in Australia, brought the defamation case in 2015 after Maxwell accused her of lying.
It was settled in 2017 before it reached trial, but while more than 2000 pages of evidence were released, around 900 court filings remained under seal or redacted.
Maxwell, daughter of disgraced media mogul Robert Maxwell, was arrested on July 2 at her $A1.7m bolthole in Bradford, New Hampshire.
It comes as Jeffrey Epstein’s New York City and Florida mansions hit market for combined asking price of $110 million ($A155 million).
According to the New York Post, the dead paedophile’s Upper East Side townhouse is listed at $88 million ($A124 m), while his waterfront estate in Palm Beach will ask $21.995 million ($A31 m).
The Neoclassical townhouse is located on one of the most sought-after blocks in New York City. It spans seven floors and boasts oak entry doors, imported French limestone with carvings and decorative ironwork.
The mansion also has a room with an elaborate video security system and still houses a lot of Epstein’s furniture.
GHISLAINE’S SILICON VALLEY TIES
Ghislaine Maxwell attempted to reinvent herself as a Silicon Valley philanthropist, after Jeffrey Epstein’s 2008 plea deal and jail time, according to a report by The Daily Beast.
The British heiress, now accused of sex-trafficking underage girls for deceased paedophile Epstein name-dropped to ingratiate herself into Silicon Valley tech society.
She bragged about being friends with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Sir Richard Branson and others.
Maxwell also attended conferences, spoke at Google and TEDx talks and other events in California to get closer to tech titans including Bezos and reportedly met her future “secret” husband Scott Borgerson, there.
After Epstein was released from jail in Palm Beach, he and Maxwell targeted Silicon Valley as a way of transcending their “PR problem”.
None of the tech titans have been implicated in Epstein’s sex ring.
Maxwell worked to reinvent herself as an environmental activist who was looking for venture capital as a way of reinventing herself and gaining distance from her alleged crimes.
One observer, Ellen K. Pao, took to Twitter to point out Maxwell’s MO.
“She was at the Kleiner holiday party in 2011, but I had no desire to meet her much less have a photo taken with her,” Pao fumed in one post. “We knew about her supplying underage girls for sex, but I guess that was fine with the ‘cool’ people who managed the tightly controlled guest list.”
I read an article about it. I certainly didn't see anyone trafficked or of course I would have reported it. My clarifying tweet got buried pic.twitter.com/0yplmgIMrp
— Ellen K. Pao (@ekp) July 22, 2020
Maxwell and her alleged “secret husband” Borgerson even attended Jeff Bezos’ ultra-exclusive book retreat, known as Campfire, in 2018 in Santa Fe, New Mexico (not far from Epstein’s compound Stanley, where Maxwell and Epstein allegedly raped an underage girl, molested another girl, and where they welcomed visitors such as Prince Andrew and the Clinton family). One insider told Vice that Maxwell attended two other Campfire weekends before the 2018 event.
Bezos has not commented on his alleged ties to Maxwell.
SHOCK TWIST IN SHOOTING ON EPSTEIN JUDGE’S HOUSE
The man suspected of killing the son and wounding the husband of a high-profile federal judge in New Jersey has been identified as men’s rights activist and lawyer Roy Den Hollander, federal US sources say.
According to his website, Den Hollander, 72, specialised in “anti-feminist cases” to “help battle the infringement of Men’s Rights by the Feminists”.
Den Hollander dressed in a Fed Ex uniform and opened fire on Judge Esther Salas’s North Brunwick, New Jersey home on Sunday afternoon, killing the judge’s son and injuring her defence lawyer husband.
Den Hollander was later found dead in Rockland, New York. Investigators believe he shot himself hours after the attack on Salas’s home.
Days prior to the shooting, Judge Salas had been assigned a case involving the late paedophile and billionaire Jeffrey Epstein.
NJ Judge Esther Salas took on Epstein case days before deadly shooting https://t.co/byNpQytcUq pic.twitter.com/TgrUVJm81D
— New York Post (@nypost) July 20, 2020
According to the New York Post, Judge Salas was assigned to handle a class-action lawsuit from Deutsche Bank investors who claim the company failed to monitor “high-risk” customers — including Epstein, who took his own life in prison last year.
The investors also claim in New Jersey federal district court that the bank made false and misleading statements about its anti-money-laundering policies.
The complaint alleges that Deutsche Bank “failed to properly monitor customers that the Bank itself deemed to be high risk, including, among others, the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.”
Judge Salas was assigned to handle the suit, which plaintiffs led by Ali Karimi filed in US District Court for the District of New Jersey on behalf of investors who bought securities from the bank between November 7, 2017, and July 6, CNN reported.
The company didn’t inform the investors it hadn’t fixed disclosure control problems — and adding Epstein, who committed suicide in his Manhattan jail cell last year as he awaited trial on sex-trafficking charges — as a client in 2013 “was a critical mistake and should never have happened,” Deutsche Bank said in a statement to staff.
In a new twist, Den Hollander has been linked to another murder in a different state, days earlier.
The Sun reports confirmation from the FBI that they have evidence linking the murder of Marc Angelucci, 52, a men’s rights lawyer, to Den Hollander.
Angelucci was found “unresponsive and suffering from apparent gunshot wounds” at his home, according to a statement from the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
GHISLAINE MAXWELL’S MURDER FEARS
Meanwhile, Maxwell has told friends she believes she’ll be dead before she goes to trial.
The former girlfriend and “madam” of Epstein has confided to friends that she believes her former paedophile lover Epstein was murdered in his New York prison cell last August.
And she fears she will be next to meet that grisly fate behind bars.
Friends said she hired bodyguards before being arrested after receiving death threats.
The socialite was denied bail on sex trafficking charges and faces a year-long wait inside Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Centre before trial.
A family friend told The Sun, Maxwell, 58, fears she will be bumped off inside the brutal New York jail which warders describe as a “hellhole”.
Another source said: “It’s the same as Guantanamo Bay — lights on, noise and constant interruption of sleep”.
An inquest ruled that Epstein’s death last August at Manhattan’s Metropolitan Detention Centre was suicide.
But the 66-year-old was taken off suicide watch before he died despite being injured from either a suicide bid or an attack weeks earlier.
His death by hanging sparked theories he was silenced to stop him selling out paedo friends.
Cameras covering his cell were faulty and guards falsified checks.
Maxwell’s friend said: “Everyone’s view including Ghislaine’s is Epstein was murdered. She received death threats before she was arrested.”
The pal was in regular contact with Maxwell at her secret New Hampshire hideaway.
Maxwell denies her charges, and faces up to 35 years in jail if found guilty.
GHISLAINE ‘HAD TO FIND THREE GIRLS A DAY FOR EPSTEIN’
Warning: Graphic Content
Extraordinary new testimony claims Maxwell helped to procure up to three girls a day for Jeffrey Epstein’s “sexual pleasure”.
The new claims by an alleged victim are likely to form an important part of the criminal case against Epstein’s ‘madam’.
Annie Farmer said Ms Maxwell ordered her to strip naked at the paedophile financier’s remote American ranch before groping her breasts when she was 16.
Ms Farmer claimed the couple “lavished her with gifts” and offered to further her studies as part of a strategy to snare her in their “organised sex-trafficking ring”.
The revelations emerged after Maxwell, 58, was denied bail by a judge in
New York and ordered to spend the next year on remand at one of America’s worst jails.
She is due to go on trial in July 2021 on child sex-trafficking and perjury charges, and faces up to 35 years in prison if convicted. Maxwell “vigorously” denies any wrongdoing and has pleaded not guilty to all the charges.
Ms Farmer, a psychologist, 41, is believed to be one of three victims — all minors at the time of the alleged offences — on whom US federal prosecutors are relying in their case against Maxwell. One of the girls was only 14.
A six-count indictment, which summarises the charges, identifies Ms Farmer only as “minor victim 2”, who was allegedly abused in New Mexico in 1996.
However, she has waived her right to anonymity and last week she pleaded for Maxwell to be kept behind bars in a statement to her bail hearing.
“She was a sexual predator who abused me and countless other children and young women,” she told the judge.
Although prosecutors have not revealed her evidence, details of Ms Farmer’s alleged ordeal were contained in a civil lawsuit filed in December.
The damages claim, alleging battery and false imprisonment, was made against Maxwell and the estate of Epstein after the wealthy financier killed himself in custody last year as he was awaiting trial for multiple sex offences.
The papers allege that “Maxwell spent years overseeing and managing Epstein’s sex-trafficking network … Epstein’s preference was to have three different girls a day for his sexual pleasure and Maxwell was in charge of recruiting the girls”.
In 1995, Ms Farmer’s older sister, Maria, was recruited to work for Epstein’s New York household. During this time, Maria noticed Ms Maxwell, Epstein’s then girlfriend, spotting girls and talking to them outside the Manhattan property. “Maxwell would leave the mansion claiming she had ‘to go get girls for Jeffrey’,” the lawsuit claims.
When Epstein discovered Maria had a younger sister, he persuaded her to bring Annie to New York from the family home in Arizona. During this visit, Ms Farmer alleges Epstein sat between the two sisters at a cinema and fondled her.
It is claimed the financier later invited the younger sibling to his 4050ha ranch in New Mexico, telling Ms Farmer’s mother he had organised an educational gathering for high school students. “He explained that Maxwell would be a host or chaperone for Annie at the event,” the court papers say.
The couple allegedly paid for Annie to fly to the remote Zorro ranch in spring 1996, but she arrived to discover there were no other students.
Upon returning to the ranch, Maxwell allegedly directed Annie to take off her clothes and lay on a massage table, where she touched intimate parts of Annie’s body against her will for Maxwell’s sexual benefit and Epstein’s.
“Maxwell exposed Annie’s breasts and groped her,” the papers say. The next morning, Epstein visited Ms Farmer in her room, got into bed demanding a “cuddle” and sexually assaulted her.
Ms Farmer’s lawyers say she decided to go public with her allegations only after Epstein’s suicide because she feared retaliation.
On Saturday, it was claimed Ms Maxwell kept a “sex swing” and would hang upside down “like a bat” on another device in an attempt to look younger.
EPSTEIN BOASTED ABOUT ‘FLYING TO MOSCOW TO VISIT PUTIN’
A new investigation claims Jeffrey Epstein bragged about flying to Moscow to meet with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
Journalist Edward Jay Epstein (no relation to the deceased paedophile) made the revelations as part of his investigation into how the financier made his millions.
The journalist first met Epstein in 1988 and said while he was “charming”, he seemed to lack the firecracker star power that true Wall Street superstars oozed.
And after the sex offender was found dead in jail in 2019, the head of his $A800 million hedge fund hinted his bank balance was just the “tip of the iceberg”.
Journalist Mr Epstein explains he never saw the paedophile seal a single business deal, despite his notorious wealth.
He wrote in the Mail on Sunday: “Everything about Epstein was a con. I never thought: ‘Here’s an honest guy.’”
Mr Epstein explains how the financier tried to fob him off with a fake first-class plane ticket – which was immediately sniffed out at the check-in desk.
He also wondered whether Jeffrey Epstein was implicated in the “shady business” of hiding money in offshore tax havens.
He continued: “I was becoming increasingly wary that Epstein was a scam artist and I described the barely legal form of insider trading in which he was clearly involved (in my column). Epstein was livid and broke off all contact.”
After the pair stopped talking, journalist Mr Epstein remained enthralled by Jeffrey Epstein’s bizarrely glamorous lifestyle, rubbing shoulders with royalty, the super-rich and a seemingly endless stream of “the most beautiful women I had ever seen in my life”.
The journalist claims Jeffrey Epstein got back in touch with him after a frosty 24-year silence, to discuss the book Lolita – a controversial novel which sees an adult man become sexually obsessed with a 12-year-old girl.
The journalist agreed to meet to discuss the book – but says he really went to find out how Jeffrey Epstein made his millions.
He claims when they met, the walls were adorned with photos of Jeffrey Epstein with Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Emirate Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, who the financier suggested some were clients.
Mr Epstein writes he then asked: “‘What about Russia? Any clients there?’”
He claims the sex-offender then “shrugged and said he often flew to Moscow to see Vladimir Putin”.
Mr Epstein continues: “I found this hard to swallow. It was implausible that such powerful world leaders would trust the management of their personal funds to a convicted sex offender.”
At this point, the financier had already served a 13-month sentence after pleading guilty to soliciting underage girls in Florida.
But, journalist Mr Epstein concludes: “It cannot be excluded that Epstein was actually telling the truth when he had said rich and powerful people found reason to consign funds to him.”
He adds: “Perhaps the mystery of Epstein’s fortune is not how he made his millions, but to whom the money ultimately belongs.”
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Originally published as Brit couple claims they saw Prince Andrew leave restaurant with “three young women” after partying with Ghislaine Maxwell