Epstein ‘moulded’ Ghislaine Maxwell

Jeffrey Epstein “moulded” Ghislaine Maxwell after she moved to the US, a friend claims.

Ghislaine Maxwell with Jeffrey Epstin, Donald Trump and his then girlfriend Melania . Picture: Getty Images.

Jeffrey Epstein “moulded” the British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell after she moved to the US following the death of her father, a former friend of the late American financier has claimed.

Stuart Pivar, an art collector and scientist, said Epstein took care of Ms Maxwell after the disgraced newspaper mogul Robert Maxwell fell from a yacht in 1991. Mr Pivar added that Epstein was a sex addict.

Ms Maxwell, 57, is being sued by one of Epstein’s alleged victims, who accuses her of facilitating her abuse. Jennifer Araoz, 32, whose claims Ms Maxwell denies, says she was targeted aged 14.

Ms Maxwell was close to the Duke of York, Prince Andrew, who said on Saturday that he first met Epstein in 1999 but had never suspected him of sexual abuse.

Boris Johnson was asked yesterday at the G7 summit in Biarritz whether he had confidence in the duke. “I’ve worked with Prince Andrew, I’ve seen the good he has been able to do for UK business overseas,” Mr Johnson said.

Mr Pivar, 89, told Mother Jones, a US news magazine, that Epstein had “a severe … satyriasis, the male counterpart of nymphomania”.

“He had the money and the wherewithal to work it out, to manage to supply himself with three underage girls every single day,” he added.

Mr Pivar said: “When Epstein brought Ghislaine [Maxwell] to this country, he put me in charge of her because she was a total wreck. The last thing that should’ve happened to someone like that is to fall in to the care of the likes of Jeffrey. He was uncontrollable and he had the dough to yield to it.”

He went on: “The story is more bizarre than people begin to realise. All you read in the press is the superficiality of the scandalousness of it without realising that underneath it is the science of the pathology and the medicine of it.”

Epstein, 66, was jailed in 2008 for 18 months after pleading guilty to soliciting sex from girls as young as 14.

He was arrested on July 6 on federal charges of the alleged abuse of a “vast network” of girls and was found dead in his prison cell on August 10 having apparently hanged himself.

Flight records for Epstein’s private pilot show that Ms Maxwell was at the centre of his courting of politicians and celebrities. She travelled with Epstein from his private island in the US Virgin Islands to Florida in February 1999.

They were accompanied by the duke and Anna Malova, then 27, a former Miss Russia later convicted of failing to attend a drug-treatment program, The Sunday Times reported.

Ms Maxwell also accompanied Epstein and Virginia Giuffre on a flight to London in March 2001. Ms Giuffre has claimed in court papers in Florida that she was forced to have sex with the duke when she was 17, under the state’s age of consent.

Ms Giuffre has claimed that she was procured by Ms Maxwell, who has not been charged and has denied the allegations against her.

Ms Giuffre’s allegations against the duke were struck from US civil court records in 2015 after a judge said they were “immaterial and impertinent”.

Prince Andrew has always vehemently denied any “sexual contact or relationship with Virginia [Giuffre]” and “impropriety with underage minors”.

He said he never suspected Epstein of the behaviour which led to his conviction. “I have said previously that it was a mistake and an error to see him after his release in 2010 and I can only reiterate my regret,” he said.

Jack Scarola, a lawyer who has acted for several of Epstein’s victims, including Ms Giuffre, said yesterday: “We would welcome the opportunity to examine Prince Andrew under oath — a request we first made many years ago.”

The Times