Epstein dead: Victims to go after estate as lawyer says death is linked to court papers
A teen ‘sex slave’ of US financier has spoken out about his death from her home in Queensland, as FBI vows to get answers.
One of the woman who accused disgraced US financier Jeffrey Epstein of sex crimes has spoken out about his death from her home in Australia.
Virginia Roberts Giuffre, Epstein’s self-described “sex slave”, married an Australian man and now lives in Queensland.
The 36-year-old who filed a since-settled lawsuit against Epstein’s ex- girlfriend British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, says she’s grateful he will never harm anyone again, but is angry there will be no chance he answers for his conduct.
Giuffre told The New York Times that her husband woke her up early in Australia to share the news that the wealthy financier died on Saturday morning in an apparent suicide.
Ms Giuffre said “We’ve worked so hard to get here, and he stole that from us, too.”
Ms Giuffre, claimed in a 2016 deposition in the court filings that Epstein and Maxwell groomed her to become a “sex slave” for him and his circle of cohorts, when she was 16.
Giuffre said she first met Maxwell in 2000 while working at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
Epstein’s death came hours after the release of 2,000 pages of court documents, part of a related lawsuit, that revealed allegations that Epstein and Maxwell, ordered her to have sex with powerful men.
The records contain graphic allegations against Epstein who pleaded not guilty to sex trafficking charges.
The documents, for the first time, reveal the names of the men who Ms Giuffre alleges Maxwell and Epstein forced her to have sex with, as well as new details about Epstein’s relationships with Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew, and Trump.
Epstein’s apparent suicide has prompted assurance from a US official that allegations of sexual abuse and conspiracy will not be cast aside, AP reports.
Epstein dead within hours of document release
Prince Andrew’s close friendship with Epstein will continue to be raised in American courts as lawyers representing alleged victims say they will press their civil cases against the estate of the American financier.
Just hours before Epstein’s death from an apparent suicide while in custody on Saturday, Buckingham Palace had denied allegations detailed in US court documents that Prince Andrew had inappropriately touched a young girl.
The FBI and Justice Department have opened separate investigations into the circumstances of Epstein’s jail cell death, which has left Attorney General William Barr “livid.”
Prince Andrew first met Epstein in the 1990s and continued his friendship with him even after Epstein was convicted of child prostitution in a secret plea deal, and serving 13 months jail time in 2009. The two men were photographed strolling through Central Park in 2011 which caused such a furore, Prince Andrew had to relinquish his role as a British trade envoy.
On Friday Prince Andrew was named in 1200 pages of documents relating to a defamation case emanating out of the earlier Epstein trial, which was released by a Manhattan court.
Buckingham Palace said: “This relates to proceedings in the US, to which the Duke of York is not a party. Any suggestion of impropriety with minors is categorically untrue.”
The documents, filed in 2017 but released on Friday, were part of a defamation case initiated by Ms Giuffre who is suing Ghislaine Maxwell, a British socialite and Epstein’s former girlfriend.
Overnight Ms Giuffre’s lawyer, Sigrid McCawley, who also represents some other Epstein victims, said it was no coincidence that Epstein took his life within 24 hours of the release of Giuffre’s documents which “expose the scope, scale and sophistication of Epstein’s international sex trafficking operation’’.
Giuffre was recruited into Epstein’s high flying world and for four years she says she was pimped out to Epstein’s friends.
Ms McCawley said in a statement: “We are hopeful that the government will continue to investigate and will focus on those who participated and facilitated Epstein’s horrifying sex trafficking scheme that damaged so many. The victims await the true justice they have sought and deserve.’’
In the court documents released on Friday, Ms Giuffre described being with a young college student Johanna Sjoberg at Epstein’s home in 2001 where she first met Prince Andrew.
Ms Giuffre’s lawyers say Ms Sjoberg’s testimony corroborates Ms Giuffre’s account of how she was recruited to have sex with Epstein.
“Ms Sjoberg also testified about sexual acts that occurred with her, Prince Andrew, and Ms Giuffre, when she and [Maxwell] were staying at Epstein’s Manhattan mansion,” Giuffre’s lawyers said in the document.
Ms Sjoberg said “I just remember someone suggesting a photo, and they told us to go get on the couch. And so Andrew and Virginia sat on the couch, and they put the puppet, the puppet on her lap. And so then I sat on Andrew’s lap, and I believe on my own volition, and they took the puppet’s hands and put it on Virginia’s breast, and so Andrew put his on mine.”
Ms Giuffre also described how she was flown to London with Epstein and met Prince Andrew at Ms Maxwell’s house. This was where a photograph was taken of Prince Andrew with his arms around Ms Giuffre.
Ms Giuffre’s lawyers say in the documents:“This particular photograph corroborates Ms Giuffre’s claims, and there is no other reasonable explanation why an American child should be in the company of adults not her kin, in the London house owned by the girlfriend of a now convicted sex offender.”
Epstein’s friendship with Prince Andrew continued in the late 90s and through the 2000s in St Tropez, Thailand as well as visits to royal palaces in Windsor and Sandringham.
Previously in another court case against Epstein, Ms Giuffre, now 35, testified she was recruited aged 15 from Donald Trump’s Mar a Lago club where she was working as a cloakroom attendant, to perform sex acts with Epstein and his friends.
She has previously testified she had sex with Prince Andrew on three occasions when she was 17 in New York, in London and lastly in the US Virgin Islands. The third occasion, she claimed, was part of an orgy with numerous under age girls and that Epstein had told her to give the prince whatever he required.
The court was told this was so Epstein could ingratiate himself with powerful people and she was instructed to report back what happened, ostensibly so that Epstein could then obtain potential blackmail material.
When details of this court case emerged, Buckingham Palace issued a statement saying the allegations against Prince Andrew were ‘false and without any foundation’. Sarah Ferguson, Prince Andrew’s ex-wife publicly supported him.
Giuffre’s allegations about Prince Andrew was then struck from the court record in 2015 after being described as “immaterial and impertinent” by U.S. lawyer for the Southern District of Florida. That judge, Alexander Acosta, stood down as US Labour secretary last month following criticism of his lenient sentence given to Epstein.
With AP
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