Royal headache as Epstein cases move through courts

Prince Andrew’s links with disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein could be in the spotlight for the next five weeks.

Sketch of ‘Jane’ testifying during Ghislaine Maxwell’s trial in New York.. REUTERS/Jane Rosenberg

The more lurid the headline, the longer and slower is Prince Andrew’s horse ride on the Windsor Park estate, not far from his home at Royal Park and a stone’s throw from the Windsor Castle of his mother, the Queen.

Less than two years ago, just days after the prince stood back from royal duties because of a car-crash interview detailing his high-profile association with disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, who had committed suicide a few months earlier, the Queen, then 93, even rode her horse alongside her favourite son, providing moral support in the misty chilly morn.

This week Andrew and his steed have been getting plenty of exercise as the 95-year-old monarch prepares for Christmas at Sandringham, and the scrutiny of his relationship with Epstein and his society chum Ghislaine Maxwell has overshadowed the festive season.

For not only has the Queen’s third child continually cropped up this week in the explosive Manhattan Federal Court trial of Maxwell, 59 – expected to last for another five weeks – his own legal woes with one of Epstein’s alleged trafficked women, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, have been advancing through the US court system.

The two trials involve Epstein’s evil activities but are separate – one is a criminal case where Andrew is mentioned only peripherally, the other is civil litigation directly against Andrew – but at the heart of both are claims and counterclaims of profiteering, motive, exploitation and sleaze.

Certainly the testimony this week in the Maxwell case from Epstein’s alleged victims paints a vividly ugly picture of the financier’s immense power and sexual desires.

The court heard of sex toys and massages, of intimate abuse, of grooming, of masturbation, chauffeured cars, shopping trips, pool parties, and teen sex orgies in private luxury accommodations.

But there have been no specific allegations made against Andrew in this case apart from confirmation that he was a passenger on Epstein’s planes. The first of the prosecution’s four marquee witnesses who gave evidence anonymously, known as “Jane”, did not made any allegations against Andrew.

Nor has she made any against Donald Trump, whom she said she was introduced to at a beauty pageant after Epstein gave her $2000 for a dress. She added that Epstein drove her to Mar-a-Lago when she was 14 in a dark green car. Jane said she was never directed to have sex with any of Epstein’s associates.

Maxwell is the ninth and youngest child of press baron Robert Maxwell, who died in controversial circumstances falling off his luxury yacht, Lady Ghislaine, more than three decades ago, months after raiding the pension pots of his staff.

With her impeccable contacts, including royalty, Maxwell usually was found gracing charity fund­raisers and society weddings.

But now she is defending multiple sex-trafficking charges that she was Epstein’s right-hand person, involved in facilitating a pyramid scheme of abuse between 1994 and 1997: winning the trust of under-age girls, normalising sexual acts, encouraging the girls to take money from Epstein for their education and travel, and paving the way for Epstein’s abuse, including taking part in some of it herself.

Jane said Maxwell would sometimes participate in the orgies, which involved other girls, and she would rub her breasts. Maxwell showed her how Epstein liked to be massaged and he would use sex toys on her, sometimes in a painful fashion. She said she would dread seeing Epstein, which happened multiple times a month when she was aged 14, 15 and 16.

During her evidence this week Jane was asked: “Do you remember Prince Andrew being on a flight with you?” To which she replied: “Yes.”

Maxwell’s legal counsel has questioned the reliability of Jane’s testimony because there were many discrepancies between her evidence this week and two interviews she had provided to the FBI in 2019 and last year.

Jane has been given $US2.9m ($4.1m) from the Epstein victims compensation fund and Maxwell’s lawyers have claimed she has come forward with allegations against Maxwell in 2019 only because of the financial benefits.

Maxwell, who denies all charges, also is accused of facilitating other abuse of minors in New York, at an isolated ranch in New Mexico, on a private island in the Virgin Islands and in an apartment in Paris near the Arc de Triomphe.

Maxwell’s older brother Ian labelled his sister’s situation as “the most over-hyped trial of the century” and has been fiercely critical of the isolation conditions she has endured in a US prison while awaiting trial. At least one of Maxwell’s six surviving siblings has been in court each day.

Names of the famous have been peppered across the trial daily. Apart from Andrew, other high-profile Epstein associates named as being passengers on Epstein’s planes have been another former US president, Bill Clinton, former astronaut and US senator John Glenn and actor Kevin Spacey.

At the beginning of the trial this week Epstein’s private pilot Larry Visoski admitted receiving a gift of a parcel of 40 acres (16ha) of land in New Mexico from Epstein, as well as funds to educate his two daughters. He denied seeing any sexual activity or material such as condoms on the flights he captained – which varied in Epstein’s fleet from a Gulfstream jet with burgundy carpet to the much larger Boeing 727 that had a round room with a doughnut-shaped couch.

The planes had doors that closed the cockpit from the cabin but Visoski, who worked for Epstein from 1991 to 2019, said he didn’t see anyone he believed was an unaccompanied minor even when looking out on to the tarmac at people arriving.

Prince Andrew, Virginia Roberts Giuffre and Maxwell in 2001. Picture: Florida Southern District Court

However he did remember Giuffre, describing her as a shorter woman having “dirty blonde hair” but he couldn’t recall how many times she might have been on the flights. He also recognised Jane, describing her as “a mature woman with piercing powder-blue eyes” believing she was much older than 14. “I didn’t notice anybody of a younger nature without an adult or parent,” Visoski said. “I didn’t know anybody’s exact age at all.”

Giuffre, who now lives in Australia, isn’t part of this Maxwell criminal case because she is suing Maxwell separately for defama­tion. But in her civil case against Andrew, Giuffre’s lawyers this week filed a motion to block the prince’s attempt to have the lawsuit thrown out and they launched some verbal volleys of their own.

Giuffre’s team says during each “incident” Andrew “knew she was a victim of sex trafficking, and intended to compel her into submission to gratify his own sexual desires”. She further accuses Andrew of attacking her credibility, character and motives, which lacks foundation, “to avoid confronting his own misconduct by attempting to blame and shame his victim”.

The prince’s lawyer has accused Giuffre of profiting from her allegations and of filing frivolous lawsuits against Andrew, “whose sullied reputation is only the latest collater­al damage of the Epstein scandal’’.

Andrew, 61, has unequivocally denied Giuffre’s allegations that he had sex with her on three occasions and says he cannot remember ever meeting her. He has suggested a photograph of himself with his arm around her waist in what appears to be Maxwell’s London mews house, may have been doctored.

He has demanded that the Giuffre case be dismissed because of a prior legal agreement made between Giuffre and Epstein. The arguments for dismissal will be heard on January 4. This will be around the time the Maxwell case will be winding up for jury consideration.

On all fronts that may be when Andrew finds himself out and about at dawn exercising his favourites of the royal stud.