Prince Andrew with Virginia Roberts, who alleges she slept with him aged 17. Photo / Supplied
Prince Andrew with Virginia Roberts, who alleges she slept with him aged 17. Photo / Supplied
Politicians, celebrities and even members of the Royal family had waited for this moment with bated breath, dreading what might be disclosed.
Yesterday, after months of legal wrangling, a Manhattan court released 1,200 pages of documents detailing lurid claims of the alleged abuse carried out by Jeffrey Epstein on teenage girls.
The files relate to the case of Giuffre v Maxwell, in which Virginia Giuffre, who claims to have been the US businessman's teenage "sex slave", sued Ghislaine Maxwell, a British socialite and the billionaire's former girlfriend, for defamation.
Testimony includes claims by Giuffre that she had sex with the Duke of York when she was 17. All the allegations about Prince Andrew were struck from the court record in 2015 after being described as "immaterial and impertinent" by the judge. The Prince has always denied the allegations and any involvement.
Guiffre also alleged that she was made to have sex with the billionaire's other famous friends, such as Alan Dershowitz, a Harvard law professor.
Dershowitz has petitioned for the documents to be made public, arguing that they will clear his name. "I will fight this to the very end. I want the facts to come out," he said.
There is also evidence from David Rodgers, one of Epstein's pilots, who described how he had flown Epstein with celebrity guests. Donald Trump appeared on flight logs from 1997. But the allegations are far from over as the release is only the start.
Court officials confirmed the 2,000 documents that judges had ordered to be unsealed would be done so in chunks and the 1,200 pages made public yesterday were just the beginning.
A judge in another hearing related to the case will now consider whether to release a further 10,000 pages. The documents released state it is "an undisputed fact that multiple witnesses deposed in this case" have testified that Maxwell, daughter of Robert Maxwell "operated as convicted paedophile Epstein's procurer of under age girls". The defamation case, filed in 2015, was settled out of court by Maxwell in 2017.
Maxwell called Guiffre's claims "fictitious lies and stories to make this a salacious event".
The release comes after a legal battle led by the Miami Herald that began in January. Maxwell had opposed it on the grounds that it would spark a "furious feeding frenzy".
Epstein's accusers claim that the socialite, who is believed to be in Britain, took on the persona of a "mother hen". Guiffre alleges that Maxwell "had sex with under-age girls virtually every day" and that her and Epstein's "whole lives revolved around sex".
Maxwell is alleged in the court documents to have recruited both Guiffre and Sjoberg, who says she was approached on her college campus.
In a witness account, she describes how someone suggested they pose for a photograph on a sofa with a puppet of the Duke, whom she had not recognised until that point. She said Maxwell told her to come to a closet where she grabbed the caricature, previously described as "some kind of big blow-up toy that was his Spitting Image puppet".
"I didn't know who he was," she said. "And so when I saw the tag that said Prince Andrew, then it clicked. I'm like, that's who it is. And we went down – back down to the living room, and she brought it in.
It was just funny because – he thought it was funny because it was him." She said the Duke and Giuffre sat together on the sofa, with the puppet on her lap.
"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," she said, before agreeing that it was done in a "joking manner".
The documents allege that Giuffre, then 17, was also flown to the UK with Epstein before meeting Prince Andrew at Maxwell's London town house. They state Maxwell has never offered a "legal reasonable explanation" about the visit, documented in a photograph of the trio taken at the property in which the Duke has his arm around Ms Giuffre's bare midriff.
Jeffrey Epstein appearing in court. The billionaire has died in jail while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges. Photo / AP
Buckingham Palace, which has long denied the claims, said last night: "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 shed new light on a case which has appalled America, given the depravity of Epstein's alleged behaviour. Separately, the document refer to his former friendships with people such as Donald Trump and Bill Clinton, as well as Prince Andrew.
The court papers include an Amazon receipt for books that Epstein ordered, including SlaveCraft: Roadmaps for Erotic Servitude and A Workbook for Erotic Slaves and Their Owners. Maxwell has always denied any wrongdoing and has never been charged.
Epstein was facing sex trafficking charges next year and up to 45-years in prison if convicted.
