My job there was to entertain him, whether giving erotic massages or taking him riding
VIRGINIA, IN HER MEMOIR, OVER ALLEGED TRIP TO ZORRO TO SEE DUKE
WHEN Virginia Roberts wrote her memoir, The Billionaire’s Playboy Club, she described having had three sexual encounters with the Duke of York. The first, she said, took place in London when she was just 17, to which she claims to have been trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein.
The second occurred shortly afterwards at the Epstein mansion in New York.
Then, on page 105 of the manuscript, Miss Roberts describes a final sexual encounter with Andrew. She does so in considerable, if not compelling, detail.
Ghislaine Maxwell had told her to fly to Santa Fe to ‘meet someone there’.
Miss Roberts recalled: ‘It was the middle of the day when I arrived at the airport. One of the ranch hands came to pick me up in a big work truck that smelled like dirt and sweat.
‘When we arrived at the mansion, my guest was already there, waiting for me.
‘I couldn’t wipe the look off my face as he turned around from the bookshelf that he was standing at. “Hello” that same old cheesy grin greeted me once again. It was His Highness Prince Andrew, and what a sight.
‘He wrapped his arms around my waist and greeted me like an old friend. I hugged him back, rolling my eyes at the same time, already dreading what lay in store over the next couple of days.
‘My job was to entertain him endlessly, whether that meant having to bestow him my body during an erotic massage or simply take him horseback riding. For the next couple of days he was to be my only concern.’
Miss Roberts and the Duke were the only guests at the ranch, she said. ‘The mansion was completely empty save a couple of maids, who also cooked our dinners for us, and a couple of bodyguards that we hardly even saw at all.
‘The time dragged slowly for me as I was counting down the hours until I flew away again . . . it wasn’t easy meeting the sexual desires of these strange men, the Prince being one of them.
‘He loved my feet and even licked between my toes . . . to me it was a living nightmare.’
On the morning of the second day, Miss Roberts said she was called by one of Epstein’s assistants.
‘I had a flight booked for me to leave that afternoon, to arrive at LaGuardia airport (in New York) in the evening.’
And as far as the memoir’s narrative is concerned, those two days at Zorro were the last time she ever met, let alone had sex with, HRH the Duke of York.
The suggestion that Andrew went horse-riding with Miss Roberts is contested by his supporters.
A friend of the Duke said: ‘ It’s well known among his family and friends that the Duke had a hay fever allergy that was with him all his life. So he gave up horseriding in his teens.’
What, then, of pictures that clearly show the Duke on horseback in recent years? Apparently, the allergy has been cured.
‘The [Duchess of York] persuaded him to take an acupuncture cure in later life and that dealt with the horse hair allergy as well,’ says the source.
‘So he took up horse-riding again in his 50s, took lessons in 2017 and 2018, and was proficient enough for Trooping the Colour in honour of his mother, the Queen, later that year. The Duchess often joked that it was just her luck to marry a Prince who didn’t like horse-riding for pleasure — one of her great passions earlier in life.’
VIRGINIA, ON OATH OVER CLAIMS SHE MET ANDREW AT ZORRO RANCH
Was that printed? I don’t remember reading that— if it was printed, then it’s inaccurate
2015 . . .VIRGINIA CHANGES HER STORY
IN 2015, Miss Roberts attempted to join a legal action that had been brought by two other alleged victims of Epstein against the U.S. authorities in relation to the ‘sweetheart deal of the century’. This had allowed the paedophile tycoon to escape with a short prison sentence when he was prosecuted in 2007-8.
To support her motion, Miss Roberts submitted a sworn affidavit in which she set out ‘under penalty of perjury’ her allegations against Esptein and his powerful friends who had allegedly abused her.
She included in her affidavit four photographs taken of her during visits to Zorro Ranch.
She alleged in her affidavit that she’d had sex with Epstein’s lawyer, the Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, in a massage room at the ranch.
Dershowitz vehemently denies ever having sex with her. Miss Roberts says of the Duke: ‘I had sex with him three times, including one orgy.’ She describes these occasions, which took place, she says, in London, at Epstein’s New York mansion and at his private island in the Caribbean.
The sexual interlude with the Duke at Zorro Ranch, set out in such detail in her memoir, did not — for whatever reason — feature in her evidence.
DID SOMEONE ELSE MAKE A MISTAKE?
AFTER Ghislaine Maxwell accused her of lying about her paedophile allegations, Miss Roberts brought a defamation action against her.
In November 2016, the abuse victim gave evidence by video link
from her home in Australia. ‘Exhibit PP’ is a transcript of part of her deposition which has since been released into the public domain.
Miss Roberts is being crossexamined by Maxwell’s lawyer about perceived inaccuracies in articles about her; particularly those written by the Sunday newspaper journalist to whom she had given her first media interview in 2011.
Miss Roberts was asked by the lawyer to look at copies of these articles and make ‘checkmarks’ against any of the statements which she considered to be inaccurate. Maxwell’s lawyer: ‘ What’s the next one you have a checkmark by?
Miss Roberts: ‘I also saw Prince Andrew at a ranch in New Mexico.’ Lawyer: ‘Did you tell that to (name of journalist)? Miss Roberts: ‘No. And I think it’s a mistake. Maybe she meant somewhere else, but because we had been talking about so much, maybe she just put New Mexico.
‘I don’t think (the journalist) intentionally lied on any of these . . . some of the information just got misheard, or mishandled.’
‘And what was printed was inaccurate?’ Miss Roberts: ‘Was that printed? I don’t remember reading that in the papers, but if it was printed, it’s inaccurate.’
Lawyer:
So how are we able to reconcile this assertion with the contents of The Billionaire’s Playboy Club? According to another court document in May 2011, Miss Roberts sent an email to a journalist in which she boasted of the manuscript: ‘I’m bringing down the house with this book!’
In later cross- examination during the Maxwell defamation case, Miss Roberts insisted that the manuscript was ‘based on fact’. There were, she conceded, ‘some mistakes’.
Mistakes in a story such as this would be natural. The events that Miss Roberts talks about allegedly took place a long time ago. Memories inexorably dissipate and degrade.
Miss Roberts is also a victim of dreadful sexual abuse; she was groomed and trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein.
Given all of the trauma that attaches to the memories of that period, conflation and confusion in some of her recollection would be expected.
But, given the two different stories she has told about the alleged goings-on at the ranch in New Mexico, how can we possibly know which one to believe?
The same could be asked of the other three sexual encounters in which Miss Roberts has alleged that the Duke engaged with her.
Her accounts are occasionally inconsistent and sometimes contradictory. Yet Prince Andrew’s denials are simply not good enough to clear his name.