Prince Andrew in bid to cast Virginia Giuffre as sex trafficker

Prince Andrew’s lawyers are seeking sworn testimony from Carolyn Andriano, who says she was recruited by Virginia Giuffre at 14.

Virginia Giuffre showed her friend Carolyn Andriano the now infamous picture of her with Prince Andrew, with Ghislaine Maxwell in the background. Picture: AFP.

Prince Andrew plans to obtain sworn testimony from a victim of Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein in a high-risk gamble to cast his accuser, Virginia Giuffre, as a key member of the couple’s child sex-trafficking ring.

Lawyers for the Duke of York are seeking evidence from Carolyn Andriano, who says she was recruited by Giuffre at 14 and trained to give sexual massages.

The proposal to question Andriano under oath could, however, backfire badly because she recently corroborated claims that Giuffre had sex with Andrew at Maxwell’s London home when she was 17. “It’s potentially a double-edged sword,” said a source familiar with the duke’s strategy.

Andrew’s lawyers are searching for other women who may have been recruited by Giuffre while they were under age. “We are interested in speaking with and interviewing anyone and everyone who has information relevant to these allegations,” the source said.

This weekend it emerged that Andrew, 61, has agreed to be questioned by Giuffre’s lawyers in London on March 10.

However, Giuffre, who lives in Australia, has yet to agree to a date when she can be interviewed under oath by the duke’s defence team. Giuffre, now 38, who is also known by her maiden name, Virginia Roberts, is seeking millions of pounds in damages from Andrew after accusing him of teenage rape and sexual assault in a civil lawsuit filed in New York.

She claims that he abused her on three occasions in 2001: the incident at Maxwell’s mews house in Belgravia, central London; at Epstein’s mansion in New York; and on the late paedophile financier’s private Caribbean island.

The duke denies the allegations and has sought to get Giuffre’s case thrown out of court on a string of technicalities.

If it ends up going to a jury trial later this year, his lawyers will try to argue that Giuffre does not deserve damages because she was complicit in a “criminal enterprise”, the so-called “unclean hands” defence.

In court papers filed at the end of last month, they stated: “Giuffre’s alleged causes of action are barred in whole or in part by her own wrongful conduct and the doctrine of unclean hands.”

The decision to seek a deposition from Andriano is likely to form a key plank of this strategy. If she refuses to co-operate, she could be held in contempt of court and fined or even jailed.

Now aged 35 and living in Florida, Andriano was one of four accusers who helped to convict Maxwell on five charges linked to child sex trafficking at a trial in New York in December. The British socialite faces up to 65 years in prison, but has demanded a retrial following claims a juror failed to declare in advance that he had been abused.

The jury believed Andriano’s moving evidence despite a history of drug and alcohol addiction and mental health problems. Testifying under her first name, “Carolyn”, she revealed in court that she first met Maxwell and Epstein at their Palm Beach villa in 2001 after Giuffre, then her friend, asked if she would like to “go and make some money”.

Last month Andriano waived her right to anonymity to continue the story in more detail in an interview with the Daily Mail.

“At 14 years old, I was big-breasted and I definitely could pass for 21 when I was made up,” she recalled. “I did my own make-up, but Virginia gave me clothes. She gave me these really tight skimpy shorts with a spaghetti-strap top with all my cleavage hanging out. She just said ‘Whatever you do, don’t say your age.’ And I didn’t even ask why. I went along with it.”

The girls gave Epstein a nude massage and Giuffre had sex with him, according to Andriano. “I didn’t know what to do or say, or where to go, so I sat on the couch and watched until it was finished. We walked back downstairs and Maxwell asked, ‘How did everything go?’

“Virginia gave her a look to say it was a great session and that’s when Maxwell asked me for my telephone number.”

Andriano was also given $300 for her time. Over the next four years, she said she returned to the villa about a hundred times and was repeatedly abused by Epstein.

“I don’t think Virginia deserves anything less than what Maxwell is getting because she trafficked me into a world of spiralling downward slopes and it has taken my husband, John, 12 long years to get me to love myself again,” Andriano told the Mail.

However, in the same interview she disclosed that Giuffre texted her from London in March 2001 to tell her that she had been invited to dinner with Prince Andrew, Maxwell and Epstein.

A few days later, on her return to Florida, Andriano says Giuffre showed her a copy of the infamous photograph featuring the duke with his arm around the teenager’s waist and Maxwell in the background.

“I asked her if she’d been to the palace,” Andriano said. “And she said ‘I got to sleep with him’. I said ‘What? You’re f***ing with me’, and she said, ‘No, I got to sleep with him’. She didn’t seem upset about it. She thought it was pretty cool.”

If Andriano repeats this story under oath, it could seriously undermine Andrew’s case. He maintains that he has no recollection of meeting Giuffre. His lawyers, however, might seek to argue that Giuffre’s comments to Andriano about having sex with the prince were merely a boast and impossible to prove.

As part of the pre-trial discovery process, Andrew has requested a copy of the original photo in which he is featured alongside Giuffre. However, her lawyers have failed to produce it so far. The duke has suggested in the past that the image might have been faked.

Giuffre’s lawyer, David Boies, has previously stated: “Virginia has said for years that her role in facilitating other young women’s involvement is something that she has always regretted. But that fact doesn’t have anything to do with the truth of her allegations [against Prince Andrew].”

A spokeswoman for the duke declined to comment.

The Sunday Times