Documents relating to the Duke of York in connection with the Jeffrey Epstein scandal are to be made public this week. Photo / Getty Images
Documents relating to the Duke of York in connection with the Jeffrey Epstein scandal are to be made public this week. Photo / Getty Images
The Duke of York is braced for fresh controversy as a US court prepares to release a tranche of documents relating to the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.
Almost 200 legal papers connected to a 2015 defamation case brought by Virginia Giuffre – who accused Prince Andrew of abusing her as a teenager – against Ghislaine Maxwell, are due to be unsealed this week.
The case was settled out of court but the documents will be made public following a successful legal challenge by the Miami Herald newspaper.
They will include the names of about 170 associates of Epstein, the billionaire financier who killed himself in prison in August 2019, among them, the Duke and Bill Clinton.
Those concerning Prince Andrew are widely expected to relate to the testimony of Johanna Sjoberg, who has claimed she was with the Duke and Giuffre at Epstein’s New York mansion in 2001.
The Duke is understood to feel sanguine about the impending developments and is not expecting to be named extensively.
Sjoberg, now 43, has claimed that the Duke groped her during a bizarre incident involving a Spitting Image puppet at Epstein’s Manhattan home.
In the excerpts of her testimony previously released, she alleged that she had sat on a sofa with the Duke, Giuffre and the puppet, provided by Maxwell.
Andrew was stripped of all his royal patronages and military titles in January following a civil lawsuit brought by one of Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking victims, Virginia Giuffre. Photo / Supplied
The puppet’s hands, she claimed, were placed on Giuffre’s breast and then in mimicry, Andrew put his hand on Sjoberg’s breast.
Maxwell, in her deposition, denied the claim, saying: “I never gave him a gift of a puppet. I am not aware of any small handheld puppet that was there. There was a puppet – not a puppet – there was a – I don’t know how would you describe it really. A caricature of that was in Jeffrey’s home.”
Asked if she had used the “caricature” to put its hand on someone’s breast, she said: “I don’t recollect. I recollect the puppet but I don’t recollect anything around the puppet.”
Sjoberg, who was a student in Florida at the time, claimed Epstein ordered her to “entertain” the Duke.
She has also said that in mid-1999, she and Giuffre accompanied Epstein to visit Andrew at Balmoral.
Documents relating to Clinton are said to concern attempts to get him to testify amid Hillary Clinton’s run for the presidency.
They do not contain any allegations of wrongdoing by the former president, according to reports.
The defamation case was settled in 2017 but the Miami Herald argued that the redacted names should be made public.
The names have gradually been released since 2019, with the final batch to be unsealed this week.
The material is likely to include depositions, emails, legal documents and other previously unseen documents.
Last month, Judge Loretta Preska gave those involved 14 days to appeal against her decision, with a deadline of midnight last night.
At the time, Giuffre wrote on Twitter: “Merry early Christmas – Dozens of Jeffrey Epstein associates, victims likely to publicly ID’d in court docs in coming weeks – thank you and many blessings for Judge Preska. A truth seeker & justice maker.”
She added: “There’s going to be a lot of nervous ppl over Christmas and New Years, 170 to be exact, who’s on the naughty list?”
Many of those likely to be named have long been publicly connected to the case, as known associates of Epstein or as potential witnesses.
The names of 10 minor victims who have not gone public will remain sealed. Judge Preska ruled that their privacy outweighed the public’s right to know.
Maxwell was jailed for 20 years in June 2022 for procuring teenage girls for Epstein to abuse.
